Eliezer Schweid Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers

Editor-in-Chief Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Arizona State University

Editor Aaron W. Hughes, University of Rochester

Volume 1

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/lcjp Eliezer Schweid

The Responsibility of Jewish Philosophy

Edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson Aaron W. Hughes

Translated by Leonard Levin

Leiden • boston 2013 Cover illustration: Courtesy of Rony Shvide Hazan.

The series Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers was generously supported by the Baron Foundation.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eliezer Schweid : the responsibility of Jewish philosophy / edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Aaron W. Hughes ; translated by Leonard Levin. pages cm. — (Library of contemporary Jewish philosophers, ISSN 2213-6010 ; Volume 1) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-90-04-23484-0 (alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-24979-0 (e-book) — ISBN 978-90-04-23507-6 (pbk : alk. paper) 1. Schweid, Eliezer—Teachings. 2. Jewish philosophy. 3. Philosophy, Medieval. I. Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava, 1950– editor of compilation.

B759.S36E45 2013 181'.06—dc23

2013009764

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ISSN 2213-6010 ISBN 978-90-04-23484-0 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-24979-0 (e-book)

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents

The Contributors ...... vii

Editors’ Introduction to Series ...... ix

Eliezer Schweid: An Intellectual Portrait ...... 1 Leonard Levin

Judaism as a Culture ...... 25 Eliezer Schweid

Faith Confronting the Experiences of Our Age ...... 51 Eliezer Schweid

Humanism, Globalization, Postmodernism, and the Jewish People ...... 97 Eliezer Schweid

The Drama of Secular History: The Return to Nature and Exit from the Other Side ...... 159 Eliezer Schweid

Interview with Eliezer Schweid ...... 225 Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Leonard Levin

Select Bibliography ...... 251

The Contributors

Leonard Levin has taught Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Academy for Jewish Religion, and Rutgers University. He has translated several books in Jewish thought by Eliezer Schweid and Isaac Heinemann, and assisted in preparing the English-language version of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Heavenly Torah. His original works include Seeing with Both Eyes: Ephraim Luntshitz and the Polish-Jewish Renaissance and Why God Is Subject to Murphy’s Law. He is a founding member of the independent minyan Kol Rina in South Orange, NJ. His writings can be viewed at ajrsem.academia.edu/LennyLevin and http://www.reblen. blogspot.com.

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Ph.D, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1978) is Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism, the Director of Jewish Studies, and Professor of History at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. Her research focuses on Jewish intellectual history, Judaism and ecology, science and religion, and feminist theory. In addition to numerous 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 (1991) and the author of Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well- Being in Premodern Judaism (2003). She is also the editor of Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed World (2002); Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy (2004); Judaism and the Phenomenon of Life: The Legacy of Hans Jonas (2008); Building Better Humans? Refocusing the Debate on Transhumanism (2011); Hollywood’s Chosen People: The Jewish Experience in American Cinema (2012); and Jewish Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century (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 Rochester. Hughes was educated at the University of Alberta, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Oxford University. He has taught at Miami University of Ohio, McMaster University, the Hebrew University viii the contributors of Jerusalem, 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, 2012); Muslim Identities (Columbia, 2013); The Study of Judaism: Identity, Authenticity, Scholarship (SUNY, 2013); and Rethinking Jewish Philosophy: Beyond Particularism and Universalism (Oxford, 2014). He is also the Editor-in-chief of Method & Theory in the Study of Religion. Editors’ Introduction to Series

It is customary to begin studies devoted to the topic of Jewish philosophy 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 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 phi- losophizes? 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 philosophical activity carried out by those who call themselves Jews. As philosophy, 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 provided by the universal and totalizing gaze of philosophy. The problem is that these texts are not philosophical on the surface; they must, on the contrary, be interpreted to bring their philosophical insights to light. Within this context exegesis risks becoming eisegesis. Yet others

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 eschew the term “philosophy” and instead envisage themselves as working in a decidedly 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 philosophy—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 regardless 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

3 See, e.g., Strauss’s claim about Maimonides’ 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 Leo Strauss, “How to Begin to Study The Guide of the Perplexed,” in The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines, 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 Dilem- mas: 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). editors’ introduction to series xi to have had and, for the most part continues to have, rather specific and perhaps even practical concerns in mind. This usually translates into the notion that Judaism—at least the Judaism that Jewish philosophy seeks to articulate—is comprehensible to non-Jews and, framed in our contemporary context, that Judaism has a seat at the table, as it were, when it comes to pressing concerns in the realms of ethics and bioethics. Jewish philosophy, as should already be apparent, is not a disinterested subject matter. It is, on the contrary, heavily invested in matters of Jewish peoplehood and in articulating its aims and objectives. Because of this interest in concrete issues (e.g., ethics, bioethics, medical ethics, feminism) Jewish philosophy—especially contemporary Jewish philosophy— is often constructive as opposed to being simply reflective. Because of this, it would seem to resemble what is customarily called “theology” more than it does philosophy. If philosophy represents the critical and systematic approach to ascertain the truth of a proposition based on rational argumentation, theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and the articulation of the nature of religious truths. The difference between theology and philosophy resides in their object of study. If the latter has “truth,” however we may define this term, as its primary object of focus, the former is concerned with ascertaining religious dogma and belief. They would seem to be, in other words, mutually exclusive endeavors. What we are accustomed to call “Jewish philosophy,” then, is a paradox since it does not—indeed, cannot—engage in truth independent of religious claims. As such, it is unwilling to undo the major claims of Judaism (e.g., covenant, chosenness, revelation), even if it may occasionally redefine such claims.8 So although medieval Jewish thinkers may well gravi- tate toward the systematic thought of Aristotle and his Arab interpreters and although modern Jewish thinkers may be attracted to the thought of Kant and Heidegger, the ideas of such non-Jewish thinkers are always applied to Jewish ideas and values. Indeed, if they were not, those who engaged in such activities would largely cease to be Jewish philosophers and would instead become just philosophers who just happened to be Jewish (e.g., Henry Bergson, Edmund Husserl, and Carl Popper). Whether in its medieval or modern guise, Jewish philosophy has a tendency to be less philosophical simply for the sake of rational analysis

8 A good example of what we have in mind here is the thought of Maimonides. Although he might well redefine the notion of prophecy, he never abnegates the concept. On Mai- monides on prophecy, see Howard Kreisel, Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001), 148–56. xii editors’ introduction to series and more constructive. Many of the volumes that appear in the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers will bear this out. The truths of Juda- ism are upheld, albeit in often new and original ways. Although Jewish philosophy may well use non-Jewish ideas to articulate its claims, it never produces a vision that ends in the wholesale abandonment of Judaism.9 Even though critics of Jewish philosophy may well argue that philosophy introduces “foreign” wisdom into the heart of Judaism, those we call Jew- ish philosophers do not perceive themselves to be tainting Judaism, but perfecting it or teasing out its originary meaning.10 The result is that Jewish philosophy is an attempt to produce a particular type of Judaism—one that is in tune with certain principles of rationalism. This rationalism, from the vantage point of the nineteenth century and up to the present, is believed to show Judaism in its best light, as the synthesis or nexus between a Greek-inflected universalism and the particularism of the Jewish tradition. What is the status of philosophy among Jews in the modern period? Since their emancipation in the nineteenth century, Jews have gradually integrated into Western society and culture, including the academy. Ever since the academic study of Judaism began in the 1820s in Germany, Jew- ish philosophy has grown to become a distinctive academic discourse practiced by philosophers who now often hold positions in non-Jewish institutions of higher learning. The professionalization of Jewish philosophy has not been unproblematic, and Jewish philosophy has had to (and still has to) justify its legitimacy and validity. And even when Jewish philosophy is taught in Jewish institutions (for example, rabbinic seminaries or universities in Israel), it has to defend itself against those Jews who regard philosophy as alien to Judaism, or minimally, as secondary in importance to the inherently Jewish disciplines such as jurisprudence or exegesis. Jewish philosophy, in other words, must still confront the charge that it is not authentically Jewish. The institutional setting for the practice of Jewish philosophy has shaped Jewish philosophy as an academic discourse. But regardless of the

9 This despite the claims of Yitzhak Baer who believed that philosophy had a negative influence on medieval Spanish Jews that made them more likely to convert to Christianity. See Israel Jacob Yuval, “Yitzhak Baer and the Search for Authentic Judaism,” in The Jewish Past Revisited: Reflections on Modern Jewish Historians, ed. David N. Myers and David B. Ruderman (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 77–87. 10 Indeed, Jewish philosophers in the medieval period did not even see themselves as introducing foreign ideas into Judaism. Instead they saw philosophical activity as a rec- lamation of their birthright since the Jews originally developed philosophy before the Greeks and others stole it from them. editors’ introduction to series xiii setting, Jewish philosophy as an academic discourse is quite distinct from Jewish philosophy as constructive theology, even though the two may often by produced by the same person. Despite the lack of unanimity about the scope and methodology of Jew- ish philosophy, the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers insists that Jewish philosophy has thrived in the past half century in ways that will probably seem surprising to most readers. When asked who are the Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century, most would certainly mention the obvious: Franz Rosenzweig (d. 1929), Martin Buber (d. 1965), and Emmanuel Levinas (d. 1995). Some would also be able to name Abraham Joshua Heschel (d. 1972), Mordecai Kaplan (d. 1983), Joseph Soloveitchik (d. 1993), and Hans Jonas (d. 1993). There is no doubt that these thinkers have either reshaped the discourse of Western thought for Jews and non- Jews or have inspired profound rethinking of modern Judaism. However, it is misleading to identify contemporary Jewish philosophy solely with these names, all of whom are now deceased. In recent years it has been customary for Jews to think that Jewish philosophy has lost its creative edge or that Jewish philosophy is somehow profoundly irrelevant to Jewish life. Several reasons have given rise to this perception, not the least of which is, ironically enough, the very success of Jewish Studies as an academic discipline. Especially after 1967, Jew- ish Studies has blossomed in secular universities especially in the North American Diaspora, and Jewish philosophers have expressed their ideas in academic venues that have remained largely inaccessible to the public at large. Moreover, the fact that Jewish philosophers have used technical language and a certain way of argumentation has made their thought increasingly incomprehensible and therefore irrelevant to the public at large. At the same time that the Jewish public has had little interest in professional philosophy, the practitioners of philosophy (especially in the Anglo American departments of philosophy) have denied the philosophical merits of Jewish philosophy as too religious or too particularistic and excluded it entirely. The result is that Jewish philosophy is now largely generated by scholars who teach in departments/programs of Jewish Studies, in departments of Religious Studies, or in Jewish denominational seminaries.11

11 See the comments in Aaron W. Hughes and Elliot R. Wolfson, “Introduction: Charting an Alternative Course for the Study of Jewish Philosophy,” in New Directions in Jewish Phi- losophy, ed. Aaron W. Hughes and Elliot R. Wolfson (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010), 1–16. xiv editors’ introduction to series

The purpose of the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers is not only to dispel misperceptions about Jewish philosophy but also to help nudge the practice of Jewish philosophy out of the ethereal heights of academe to the more practical concerns of living Jewish communities. To the public at large this project documents the diversity, creativity, and richness of Jewish philosophical and intellectual activity during the second half of the twentieth century, and early twenty-first century, showing how Jewish thinkers have engaged new topics, themes, and methodologies and raised new philosophical questions. Indeed, Jewish philosophers have been intimately engaged in trying to understand and interpret the momentous changes of the twentieth century for Jews. These have included the Holocaust, the renewal of Jewish political sovereignty, secularism, postmodernism, feminism, and environmentalism. As a result, the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophy intentionally defines the scope of Jewish philosophy very broadly so as to engage and include theology, political theory, literary theory, intellectual history, ethics, and feminist theory, among other discourses. We believe that the overly stringent definition of “philosophy” has impoverished the practice of Jewish philosophy, obscuring the creativity and breadth of contemporary Jewish reflections. An accurate and forward looking view of Jewish philosophy must be inclusive. To practitioners of Jewish philosophy this project claims that Jewish philosophical activity cannot and should not remain limited to professional academic pursuits. Rather, Jewish philosophy must be engaged in life as lived in the present by both Jews and non-Jews. Jews are no longer a people apart, instead they are part of the world and they live in this world through conversation with other civilizations and cultures. Jewish philosophy speaks to Jews and to non-Jews, encouraging them to reflect on problems and take a stand on a myriad of issues of grave importance. Jewish philosophy, in other words, is not only alive and well today, it is also of the utmost relevance to Jews and non-Jews. The Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers is simultaneously a documentary and an educational project. As a documentary project, it intends to shape the legacy of outstanding thinkers for posterity, identifying their major philosophical ideas and making available their seminal essays, many of which are not easily accessible. A crucial aspect of this is the interview with the philosophers that functions, in many ways, as an oral history. The interview provides very personal comments by each philosopher as he or she reflects about a range of issues that have engaged them over the years. In this regard the Library of Contemporary Jewish editors’ introduction to series xv

Philosophers simultaneously records Jewish philosophical activity and demonstrates its creativity both as a constructive discourse as well as an academic field. As an educational project, the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philoso- phers is intended to stimulate discussion, reflection, and debate about the meaning of Jewish existence at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The individual volumes and the entire set are intended to be used in a variety of educational settings: college-level courses, programs for adult Jewish learning, rabbinic training, and interreligious dialogues. By engaging or confronting the ideas of these philosophers, we hope that Jews and non- Jews alike will be encouraged to ponder the past, present, and future of Jewish philosophy, reflect on the challenges to and complexities of Jew- ish existence, and articulate Jewish philosophical responses to these challenges. We hope that, taken as individual volumes and as a collection, the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers will inspire readers to ask philosophical, theological, ethical, and scientific questions that will enrich Jewish intellectual life for the remainder of the twenty-first century. All of the volumes in the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers have the same structure: an intellectual profile of the thinker, several seminal essays by the featured philosopher, an interview with him or her, and a select bibliography of 120 items, listing books, articles, book chapters, book reviews, and public addresses. As editors of the series we hope that the structure will encourage the reader to engage the volume through reflection, discussion, debate, and dialogue. As the love of wisdom, philosophy is inherently Jewish. Philosophy invites questions, cherishes debate and controversy, and ponders the meaning of life, especially Jewish life. We hope that the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers will stimulate thinking and debate because it is our hope that the more Jews philosophize, the more they will make Judaism deeper, durable, and long- lasting. Finally, we invite readers to engage the thinkers featured in these volumes, to challenge and dispute them, so that Judaism will become ever stronger for future generations.

Eliezer Schweid: An Intellectual Portrait

Leonard Levin

Prelude: The Background of Spiritual Zionism

Eliezer Schweid will be remembered to posterity as the voice and conscience of spiritual Zionism (especially its Gordonian variant) in the age of the fulfillment of the State and the onset of postmodernism. To shed light on this characterization, I will first provide a historical sketch to situate “spiritual Zionism” within the panorama of modern Jew- ish ideological movements. Jewish thought has always presented a perpetual dialectic of universalistic and particularist themes and tendencies. In the modern period, the pioneers of modern Judaism—thinkers such as Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger, and Samson Raphael Hirsch— first responded to the Western Enlightenment, a universalistic movement within modern Western thought, by emphasizing the universalistic themes of Judaism, in order to justify Judaism’s existence in the modern world. In effect, their philosophies were a continuation of the medieval Jewish-Christian disputation in modern guise, arguing that Judaism was perhaps the highest representation of the universal monotheistic religion at the heart of Western culture, or at the very least a worthy exemplar of it. Thus, for them the task of Jewish philosophy was to articulate the worldview of the Jewish religion in terms that were intellectually respectable by the standards of the Western philosophical tradition. This task assumed a common intellectual consensus: that all discussants agreed that some form of the Western biblical monotheistic religion was normative, and that Jewish existence was defined religiously as adherence to the Jewish religion, which was a variety of Western biblical monotheistic religion. The rise of scientific positivism and nationalism in the mid-nineteenth century threatened to render this whole line of argument obsolete. If Christians were no longer Christian, if the new outlooks no longer even had to genuflect to Christianity as the dominant opinion of mankind, then what did it mean for a young Jew, educated in the progressive ideological climate of the age, to be Jewish? If Christianity itself—and with it, the old Jewish-Christian debate—was rendered obsolete in the age of Darwin, Spencer, and Marx, what task was left for Jewish philosophy? 2 leonard levin

During this period, political ideologies arose, partly to fill the gap left by the retreat of religion. In Central Europe, Germany and Italy strove to overcome political fragmentation and forge united nation-states. In East- ern Europe, the national minorities within the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires—Poles, Czechs, Magyars, Ukrainians, Serbs, etc.— strove to advance their cultural and political interests. Meanwhile, the rise of modern, secular anti-Semitism dramatized the fact that even in the age of the decline of religion, there was something stubbornly persistent about the fact of personal and group identities— Jewish or otherwise—that resisted obsolescence. The Damascus Affair of 1840, the rise of German anti-Semitic parties from the 1870s onward, the pogroms of 1881–1904 in Russia, the Dreyfus Affair in France (1894–1910)— all these put the promises of the Enlightenment-Emancipation project vis-à-vis European Jewry into question. Gradually during this period, Jewish thinkers and groups started to articulate a theory of secular national Jewish existence as a response to the secularization of Western outlook, the rise of Western nationalism, and the renewal of anti-Jewish feeling. Moses Hess’s Rome and Jerusalem (1860), Leon Pinsker’s Auto-Emancipation (1882), the activities of Ḥovevei Zion (1880s–90s), the essays of Aḥad Ha-Am (pen-name of Asher Ginzberg, 1856–1927), and Theodor Herzl’s founding of the World Zionist Congress (1897–) are landmarks in the emergence of a secular definition of Jewish existence on a national basis. To these should be added Simon Dubnow’s Letters on Old and New Judaism (1910), formulating a theory of “Diaspora nationalism”—a Jewish national existence without Zion as a center. Among the Zionist thinkers, Aḥad Ha-Am stands out as articulating not only an ad hoc program for the immediate solution of the practical problems of Jewry (“the problem of the Jews”), but a comprehensive theory of Jewish existence to offer a rationale for Jewish living in place of the traditional religious Jewish outlook, for those who no longer found it viable (“the problem of Judaism”). His thought marks the starting-point of the variant of Zionist thought that would be called “spiritual Zionism.” Though its immediate practical agenda came from particularistic concerns, its broader philosophy drew on the whole historical Jewish experience, including the universalistic values in the Jewish tradition. Even if traditional religious Judaism was no longer intellectually convincing to Jews of a secular, scientific outlook, there was much in the traditional Jewish legacy that could be adopted in a humanistic vein, consonant with modern humanistic values but in a distinctively Jewish key. eliezer schweid: an intellectual portrait 3

The founders of spiritual Zionism used the word “spiritual” in two distinct senses. In the first sense (following the usage by Herder, Hegel, and Nachman Krochmal) it was a synonym for “cultural” and denoted specifically those elements in a national culture that formed what they considered to be the unique substance of everyday life on a popular level (language and folk customs), as well as finding expression in the products of high culture (literature, art, and music). In the second sense, it denoted concern with the ultimate and ethical questions traditionally addressed by religion, with the proviso that in an age when traditional religious faith was called into question, it might be necessary to address these same questions in a creative and original fashion. The first issue (the “national spirit” identified with national culture) was central to the concerns of the majority of those Zionists who planned and built the Yishuv during the pre-State period (Aḥad Ha-Am, Ḥayyim Naḥman Bialik, Micha Josef Berdyczewski, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Chaim Weizmann, Berl Katzenel- son, David Ben Gurion). The second was the more specialized concern of a minority (Ḥayyim Naḥman Bialik, Aaron David Gordon, Martin Buber, Rabbi Abraham Kook) who may be said to have represented ongoing grappling with the religious meaning of an enterprise that the majority conceived in secular terms. These represent two distinct streams within “spiritual Zionism,” which itself was a sub-grouping within the whole Zionist movement. In counterpoint to these were the “political Zionists” (notably Theodor Herzl and Ze’ev Jabotinsky on the right, and the Marxists on the left) who addressed the issue of establishing a Jewish homeland as a purely political issue irrespective of the question of creating a distinctly Jewish culture (whether religious or secular) in the Jewish homeland. But even among the Zionists who upheld the importance of fostering a distinctive Jewish culture in the new Jewish homeland, there was a fierce debate as to what stance this Zionist culture should take toward Diaspora Judaism, both past (the nearly two thousand years of Jewish Diaspora existence, associated with the Talmud and rabbinic Judaism) and present. This debate took place under the slogan “negation of the Diaspora,” which was interpreted in varying senses. The more conservative spiritual Zionist thinkers (including Aḥad Ha-Am, Bialik, and Gordon) felt that there was much that was valuable, especially in the historical Diaspora experience, that should be preserved through dialectical transformation, even while the obvious evils of exilic existence (political and economic powerlessness, psychological passivity) should be aggressively countered and remedied. 4 leonard levin

The more radical thinkers (Micha Josef Berdyczewski and Joseph Ḥayyim Brenner) called for a more radical break with the positive Diaspora legacy itself—a Nietzschean “transvaluation of values” that would call the very core values of Judaism into question. In whatever sense it was understood (neo-religious, secular-cultural, or radical), “spiritual Zionism” provided a way for the pioneering Zion- ists to make sense of what it meant to continue to “be Jewish” when the traditional religious Judaism of their eastern-European parents no longer was viable for them. They believed it was possible to continue to live as Jews, taking over the essence of the “national spirit” and reformulating it in secular terms. At great effort, they revived the Hebrew language as a spoken language of everyday life and developed a modern Hebrew literature that resonated with the legacy of the past while expressing with verve and urgency the issues of the present. The social-political community that they built in the Land of Israel was Hebrew-speaking and carried on in its tenor of life, celebrations, and customs a synthesis of the spirit of the Jew- ish past they had imbibed from their upbringing and that offered an effective response to the real challenges they had to confront in the present. For the generation that built the Yishuv in the early twentieth century, “spiritual Zionism” was a worldview that expressed a sense of their Jewish- ness that was evolving to meet the changing needs of their lives. Schweid’s intellectual personality was shaped first and foremost by the aforementioned thinkers of the “spiritual Zionist” movement, but also by other influences. First and foremost, he has consistently paid homage to Aaron David Gordon (d. 1922) as his primary mentor. To an unusual degree among Zionist theoreticians, Gordon lived the message of Zion- ism by transforming his personal lifestyle and devoting the last decades of his mature life to working on the land. Gordon embodied a catholicity of approach, embracing Diaspora and Eretz Yisrael experience, religious and secular concerns, all of which were part and parcel of his experience. Gordon came originally from a traditional-observant background, but he modified his personal practice late in life when he came to live among secular-Zionist pioneers. On the practical side, he exchanged the traditional religious practice of religious ritual for the secular praxis of manual labor and reclaiming the land. On the theoretical side, he took a cue from Spinoza by showing how the religious worship of a supernatural deity could be transformed into communion with divinity immanent in nature and how this transformation had ethical implications addressing one’s attitude to modern society and technology. Gordon’s teachings and personal example were promulgated by the “Gordonia” Zionist youth movement, with which Schweid felt strong affinity in his adolescent years. eliezer schweid: an intellectual portrait 5

One of the first major books in Schweid’s extensive output was a biogra- phy and study of Gordon.1 Three other dominant influences whom Schweid mentions repeatedly are Nachman Krochmal (1785–1840), Ḥayyim Naḥman Bialik (1873–1934), and Hermann Cohen (1842–1918). Though Krochmal established his rep- utation as a Jewish philosopher who adopted the Hegelian method, for Schweid he was primarily the proponent of a dynamic, participatory view of Jewish history, and a prophet of the modern Hebrew renaissance. He gave a modern inflection to traditional Jewish concepts, for instance by interpreting “spirit” as the soul of a nation’s culture as expressed in language, folkways, and intellectual creativity. In all these respects, his outlook was a precursor of spiritual Zionism.2 Moreover, by writing his major work in Hebrew, he inspired generations of students who continued to develop Hebrew literature throughout the nineteenth century, ultimately laying the basis for the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language. Though in terms of genre classification Bialik is regarded as more poet than philosopher, he was nevertheless an important contributor to the spiritual Zionist outlook. Bialik’s poetry, essays, and anthology of rabbinic lore were formative influences on Schweid in his early education and remained dear to him throughout his life.3 Bialik demonstrated how modern Jewish culture could preserve its roots in all periods of the Jewish past while expressing authentically the novel concerns of the present age. He did this above all by his use of language, which borrowed from the ancient canonical sources while transforming their meaning by application to new contexts, as well as his theory of language as a generative force in the national spirit. He set a standard for allusive power that has been very difficult for more recent generations of Israeli writers to emulate.

1 Eliezer Schweid, Ha-yaḥid: olamo shel A. D. Gordon (The Individual: The World of A. D. Gordon) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1970). 2 See Schweid’s extended discussions of Krochmal’s thought in The Idea of Modern Jew- ish Culture (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2008), 43–70, and A History of Modern Jewish Religious Philosophy (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), vol. 1, 267–334. The original Hebrew edition publication data can be found in the Bibliography. 3 “I can say that the poetry of Bialik, and later his articles and his Book of Legends had a formative spiritual influence on me. As a growing youth I relived the memories of my childhood through his poems of childhood. By so doing, I was able to internalize even his youthful struggles expressed in ‘On the Threshold of the House of Study,’ even the rifts in his soul between the ‘old’ and the ‘new,’ as if they were my own rifts, though in reality this spiritual experience was quite remote from my own. In any case, my Jewish worldview was nourished in a very special way from his creative work.” Schweid, Lihyot ben ha-am ha-yehudi (Belonging to the Jewish People) (Tel Aviv: Eked, 1992), 10. 6 leonard levin

The surprising name among Schweid’s major influences is Hermann Cohen. Cohen was not a Zionist; in fact, he sharply criticized Zionism in a noted exchange with Martin Buber. He came to overt Jewish commitment late in life, and his major Jewish philosophical work, Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism, was written in the last decade of his life and published posthumously. Schweid probably came to an appreciation of Cohen through imbibing the intellectual historical method of Julius Guttmann, who considered Maimonides and Cohen as the two intellectual giants who most adequately expressed the spirit of Judaism in their philosophies.4 Schweid credits Cohen with defending the humanistic values of Western culture which already in the late nineteenth century were under increasing pressure from the surge of scientific positivism, skepticism, technological materialism, and militaristic nationalism.5 Cohen’s powerful philosophical articulation of humanistic values as the true, essential values of Judaism would have a major impress on the religious existentialist thought of Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber. In the interview below, Schweid gives special emphasis to Gordon, Krochmal, and Cohen as thinkers of the first order in the Jewish philosophical canon (along with more obvious choices such as Maimonides, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Buber, and Rosenzweig). In doing so, Schweid offers an important key to his own thought, and the “spiritual Zionist” tradition that he represents. Though expressing a particularistic emphasis that was necessary in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries for the survival of the Jewish people, spiritual Zionism never lost sight of the universalistic values that were rooted in ancient Judaism and had also found expression in modern Western humanism. These thinkers all appreciated the interrelatedness of the nations of humanity as part of a universal ecu- menical collectivity. Culture comes into existence on the national level and is expressed in the idiosyncrasies and unique forms of every language and local variation of custom. Without nations, there would be no culture. But the plurality of national cultures ought to coalesce into the universal cultural heritage of all humanity. The Jewish worldview teaches both the universal fellowship of all humanity, and the importance of each nation— starting with the Jewish nation—maintaining its distinctive identity

4 See particularly Schweid’s treatment of Guttmann in History of Modern Jewish Reli- gious Philosophy, vol. 4. 5 Note especially Schweid’s long exposition of Cohen’s thought under the heading of “defense of humanism through return to the sources of Judaism” in History of Modern Jewish Religious Philosophy, vol. 3. eliezer schweid: an intellectual portrait 7 within the larger whole. Cohen emphasized the universalistic side of this dialectic, while Schweid’s Zionist mentors emphasized the particularistic side, but each appreciated the importance of both of these factors in traditional Jewish teaching and its modern application.

Life and Education

Eliezer Schweid was born in Jerusalem in August 1929 to parents who defined themselves as ḥofshi (“free”—in thought and practice), that is to say, intermediate between dati (religious) and ḥiloni (secular). He was raised in the Socialist-Zionist schools and youth movement, but with a positive model of his father’s individualistic “religiosity” and a positive sense from his upbringing that “Shabbat was Shabbat, the holidays were holidays.”6 Even in the Land of Israel, by virtue of living in Jerusalem rather than a more modern city or kibbutz he felt a partial identification with the world of Jewish exile (galut).7 The Zionist youth movement in the Yishuv of the 1930s–40s was more than a recreational or socializing outlet. Through it, the children of the first Zionist pioneers picked up the national and social values of their parents but also prepared themselves to participate in the Zionist project on a practical level and to contribute directly to its realization. Hamaḥanot Haolim,8 the major Socialist-Zionist youth group founded in the 1920s (and still in existence today), founded forty-two kibbutzim in the course of its activities. From it, Schweid imbibed the core value of hagshamah (“practical fulfillment” or “self-realization”), a word that occurs frequently throughout his writings and is one of the criteria he uses to evaluate the Jewish thinkers he studies—whether their thought remained only on the theoretical level, or sought translation into practical action. Schweid came to regard the virtue of hagshamah as characteristic of historical Judaism, inasmuch as traditional Judaism always tried to formulate behavioral norms, whether in the realm of ethics or ritual, into halakha (codified religious law). Schweid’s attitude on this subject reflects

6 See interview below, pages 225–26. 7 From autobiographical reminiscence in Schweid, Lihyot ben ha-am ha-yehudi, 5–27. 8 Hamaḥanot Haolim: major Socialist-Zionist youth group. The name defies translation. Maḥanot means “camps,” and olim refers to participants in aliyah, the immigration to the Land of Israel conceived as a kind of “ascent.” It thus implies: the camps of those who participate in the ascent of the Jewish homeland from dream to reality, from small beginnings to larger achievements. 8 leonard levin the position expressed by Bialik in his famous essay “Halakha and Aggada.” The term halakha, for both Bialik and Schweid, is transplanted from its original usage as “religious law” and given an updated meaning of any formulation of moral values and goals into authoritative practical direc- tives, so that an ideal will not fade into an impotent dream but achieve realization. This sense is key to understanding Schweid’s usage of the term halakha in reference to Zionist thinkers like Gordon and Katzenelson in the interview in this volume, as well as his analysis of the idea of “obligation” in the essay “Judaism as a Culture.” The Zionist youth movement of the 1940s also mirrored the ideological debates that animated the adult Zionist parties of the day. In his mem- oirs, Schweid reports how the members of the youth movement debated over the proper understanding of the “negation of the Diaspora.” Many of the leaders advocated the radically negative approach of Joseph Ḥayyim Brenner on this question, and a materialist Marxist-Zionist position more generally. Schweid found his voice, in both oral and written argument, opposing these tendencies, while championing the more spiritually affirmative position of A. D. Gordon, with which he identified from that time onward.9 In 1948, Eliezer Schweid fought in the Haganah (the paramilitary organization associated with the Labor Movement) and helped to create the new Jewish State. After the war, he was among the founders of kibbutz of Tzar’ah, where he emerged as a major intellectual leader not only within his kibbutz, but also in the kibbutz movement. When he joined the gar’in (literally, “nucleus,” but a reference to members of the group that dedicated themselves to communal life) of Tzar’ah, he assumed the role of tarbutnik—the “culture specialist” whose job it was to be in charge of the ideational and spiritual aspects of kibbutz life. Schweid took that role to mean that he had to transmit to the group the cultural values of Judaism through programming appropriate observance of the Jewish holidays and life-cycle events. By 1953 he felt that in order properly to equip himself for this role, he needed to gain more formal education concerning this “Jewish legacy” he was preaching so much about, so he enrolled as a student at the Hebrew University. Though his interests covered the whole gamut of Jewish history and creative thought, he decided to focus in his graduate studies on

9 Schweid, Lihyot ben ha-am ha-yehudi, 13–14. eliezer schweid: an intellectual portrait 9 philosophy, at least in part because he felt competent in pursuing the reading of literature and writing of literary criticism on his own. At the beginning of his studies, Schweid had the intention of returning eventually to the kibbutz to deploy his advanced education in the service of their cultural-educational needs. It was with some initial guilt that he adjusted his sights, deciding that he could more effectively serve the cultural needs of the Jewish people by pursuing the academic track to its ultimate goal and engaging in educational projects from his base in the university. In this period he married his wife Sabina, who survived the Holocaust by hiding with a farmer in the Ukraine and who arrived as a refugee in Palestine in 1947.10 They settled down in Jerusalem and started a family. Sabina would later become a professor of Art History at the Hebrew University and a celebrated author. Schweid earned his Ph.D. in 1963 and from then on worked his way up in the teaching ranks of the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah (later to be renamed the Department of Jewish Thought) of the Hebrew University. Initially he taught medieval Jewish philosophy, and his lectures on the subject in the 1960s became the basis for his later book The Classic Jewish Philosophers.11 However, his burning desire for relevance led him to become a pioneer in teaching and researching modern Jewish thought, a subject which had been hitherto neglected there (with the exception of the work of Nathan Rotenstreich). In 1973 Schweid was appointed to the new chair of Modern Jewish Philosophy, which he occupied for the next two decades. In 1973 he also became the head of the newly organized Department of Jewish Thought, in which he achieved the rank of full professor in 1984 and where he continued to teach full-time until his official retirement in 1996, even though he would continue teaching part-time for many years thereafter. At the same time, Schweid assumed an astonishingly wide array of roles of responsibility in the areas of educational and general cultural and literary activities, which made him a leading presence in the Israeli and world Zionist educational and cultural scenes. He has been active for decades in the educational department of the Israeli Defense Forces, in curricular and consulting work for the Israeli Ministry of Education, and in similar

10 See Sabina Schweid, Milḥamah, milḥamah, gevirah nehedarah (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2003), translated by Naftali Greenwood, Consider Me Lucky: Childhood and Youth during the Holocaust in Zborow (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2011). 11 Eliezer Schweid, Hafilosofim hagedolim shelanu (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 1999), translated by Leonard Levin, The Classic Jewish Philosophers (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008). 10 leonard levin work for the World Zionist Organization. One of Schweid’s biggest contributions throughout his lifetime has been his intensive involvement in the training of teachers and designing of curriculum for teaching the classics of the Jewish heritage in secular-oriented schools. He has taught educational courses at Haifa University, Ben Gurion University, as well as the Kibbutz Teacher’s Seminary at Beit Berl, the Aliyat Hanoar Seminary in Jerusalem, and the secondary school of the Labor Movement in Jerusa- lem. On the private side, Schweid has been active in the founding of the Kerem Institute for preparing secondary school teachers in teaching Juda- ism as a culture, and the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, which engages in public educational programs bridging the gap between the academic elite and the educated public. Through all these channels, Schweid has worked tirelessly throughout his life to foster a renaissance of learning and appreciation of the traditional Jewish legacy on the part of the general Israeli public, thus making the dream of “Judaism as a culture” a reality—his own personal hagshamah. Recognition for these contributions came in his being awarded the prestigious Israel Prize in 1994, honorary doctorates from the Jewish Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College in the United States, and the “Homage de L’Alliance Israelite Universelle” from the French Jewish community in 2010.

Updating Spiritual Zionism

Schweid’s identification with spiritual Zionism grew out of his education in the period of the pre-State Yishuv, and marks him as a child of that phase of Israeli history. For the generation that built the Yishuv in the early twentieth century, “spiritual Zionism” was a worldview that expressed a sense of their Jewishness that was evolving to meet the changing needs of their lives. But by the time that Schweid was launched on his career as academic and educator, the cultural issues that had been of interest in the Yishuv period were completely overshadowed for most Israelis by the practical problems of absorbing the double massive immigration from the survivors of the Holocaust and the Jewries of Arab countries, as well as surviving militarily and politically in a hostile international environment and building a stable, modern economy and society. In this environment, the question of redefining Judaism as a matrix of cultural values resting on an earlier religious tradition seemed a historical curiosity of remote concern. At the same time, a new generation of Israelis was growing up for whom the original background of these issues—the secular rebellion eliezer schweid: an intellectual portrait 11 of East European Jewish youth against the stagnant religious legacy of their elders—was unknown and incomprehensible. They knew they were Israeli, and that presented enough practical problems to fill their concerns. The question, what “spiritual-cultural content” this was supposed to represent, was a luxury and a distraction for most of them—but of burning concern to Schweid. Already in the 1960s, in a book on Israeli literature of the past few decades, Schweid noted in his analyses of the younger generation of Israeli writers (especially S. Yitzhar and Moshe Shamir) a syndrome he diagnosed as “the pain of severed roots.”12 This was manifested both in their depiction of the quality of contemporary experience (as alienated) and in their altered approach to the Hebrew language, employing a neutral, present-oriented style, which perhaps purposely lacked the depth of historical linguistic allusion that characterized Bialik, Agnon, and other writers of the modern Hebrew renaissance. If this sampling of the contemporary Israeli literature of the period were to be taken as representative, then it spelled crisis for the project of spiritual Zionism. The goals of political Zionism could be considered as achieved with the establishment of the State of Israel and the enhancement of its physical security (culminating in the stunning victory of the Six-Day War). But the objectives of spiritual Zionism required, in addition to this, the maintenance of a positive Jewish culture, with depth of historical memory, continuing to create cultural values in continuity with the millennial legacy of the Jewish past. This was now questionable, according to Schweid’s analysis. In the mid-1970s, Eliezer Schweid published two major complementary and programmatic studies that updated his theory and program of “spiritual Zionism” for the age of Israel’s maturity: the book The Lonely Jew and Judaism13 and the essay “Judaism as a Culture.”14 Taken together, they provide a diagnosis and a remedy for the spiritual state of the alienated Jew of the post–World War II world. The diagnosis was intended to fit—and succeeded reasonably well in fitting—the condition of Jews both in Israel and in Diaspora of that period.

12 Eliezer Schweid, Shalosh ashmurot (Three Watches) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1964), 202–24. 13 Eliezer Schweid, Hayehudi haboded vehayahadut (The Lonely Jew and Judaism) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1974). 14 See below, pages 25–50. 12 leonard levin

The lonely Jew is Schweid’s counterpart to Sartre’s alienated existentialist individual of Western culture post World War II (and is also cousin to Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik’s “lonely man of faith”). The traditional Jew (and his non-Jewish Western counterpart) had been defined by religious and community traditions. The Enlightenment individual had been defined by the ideals of Enlightenment humanism. Ideological man in his variants had been defined by the ideologies of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Each of these had a strong sense of identity but- tressed by these definitions. But by the 1950s, tradition, humanism, and ideology had all failed. For Sartre, the only “authentic” option left was to embrace one’s total freedom to define oneself through personal choice. To retreat into any predefined “essence” was “bad faith.” Schweid’s response to this predicament differs sharply from Sartre’s. For Schweid, authenticity for the Jew is to be found not in heroically creating his or her personality in full freedom without preconceptions, but in responding creatively in a positive fashion to the givenness of one’s Jewishness. Being born into the Jewish situation is a given, beyond one’s control, but affirming it becomes a major choice. There are many other choices still to be made for anyone adopting the “cultural Jewish” option. (The choices are narrower for one choosing the traditional religious Jew- ish option, but even there, they are not negligible.) But affirming one’s Jewish heritage provides one with a starting-point. One is formed, as a person, by the upbringing of one’s family, one’s community, and one’s people—in widening concentric circles.15 Thus, cultural Jewish identification can be an antidote to existential “loneliness.” The essay “Judaism as a Culture” provides the central expression of Schweid’s credo as a spiritual Zionist. One should therefore not expect in it (or in the other essays of this book) an academic philosophical piece proving its positions didactically with footnoted references to the previous philosophical literature. It is addressed to a reader familiar with the tradition of Zionist thought—Herzl, Aḥad Ha-Am, Bialik, Gordon, Berdyczew ski, Brenner—that is, to thinkers who also were not academic philosophers but political-cultural theoreticians who also wrote directly for a popular

15 This schema—individual, family, community, people, humanity—is widely repeated in Schweid’s works. It is also found in Aaron David Gordon and Moses Hess. See A. D. Gordon, “Le-verur ra’ayonenu mi-yesodo” in Mivḥar ketavim (Jerusalem: Zionist Library, 1982), 248–58; and Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem (New York: Philosophical Library, 1958), fourth and sixth letters. Indeed, the pastoral theme in Hess and Gordon can be read as an antidote to the alienation of Western mankind suffering the ill effects of industrial civilization. eliezer schweid: an intellectual portrait 13 audience in advocacy of their positions. Schweid’s references to these previous thinkers are occasionally explicit but more often implicit. His essay is philosophical, however, in the discipline of its analytical method, developing its position logically and consistently on the basis of carefully defined concepts and critically developing the logic of previously articulated Zionist concepts on the basis of contemporary historical, cultural, political, and social developments. We should note that there is an important difference in Schweid’s advocating the program of spiritual Zionism in the context of the cultural alienation of the 1970s, as compared with Aḥad Ha-Am offering it in the context of the crisis of East European Jewish society in the 1890s. Aḥad Ha-Am could assume that his reader’s identification as “Jewish” was strong and unquestioned. The memory of life in the organic traditional Jewish society of the shtetl was a recent memory within the lifetime—and usually within the primal childhood experience—of the audience he was addressing. Moreover, he could assume in his ideal reader a familiarity with the library of traditional Jewish classical sources, to appreciate his historical and literary allusions. Even the rebels of the movement, Micha Josef Berdyczewski and Joseph Ḥayyim Brenner, could assume knowledge of the traditional Jewish background as backdrop for their rebellion against it; their own Jewishness had been formed in that milieu and was not itself in question, no matter how far they might travel existentially from their point of origin. But Schweid is on the one hand diagnosing a vacuum of Jewish knowledge and consciousness, and on the other hand prescribing “Judaism as a culture” as a remedy. He addresses a generation that knew the “pain of severed roots” better than it knew the legacy of Judaism. The gap between the one and the other was a strong indication that a major project of cultural education was necessary to bridge the gap. From this later historical vantage point, Schweid also diagnoses a critical weakness in the early formulation of spiritual Zionism that needs to be addressed if this conception of Jewish commitment is to remain viable— the ambivalence towards the very notion of obligation. The generation that created the “cultural Jewish” standpoint could rely on the authenticity of its own Jewishness by the fact of its members receiving their personal formation and early education in the bosom of a profoundly Jewish traditional community. Relaxing or dropping the sense of halakhic obligation was constitutive of the cultural Jewish stance, and did not impugn the Jewishness of its proponents. But for the present generation, a major effort is required to acquire the Jewish literacy that can make for the Jew- ish authenticity of a distinct Jewish culture. The forms that traditional 14 leonard levin halakha prescribed must be affirmed as the carriers of historical Jewish culture to inform the present and therefore as obligatory on some level. The very notions of “halakha” and “obligation” must be redefined in a sense not identical to their Orthodox connotation, but appropriate to an authentic cultural Zionist stance. This is the problem that Bialik expressed in his essay “Halakha and Aggada,” updated for a new generation in a different historical situation.

Faith in a Secular Mode

The essay “Judaism as a Culture” shows Schweid as a proponent of the first (national-cultural) sense of “spiritual Zionism” we have defined earlier. His essay on faith grapples with the issues raised by the second (religious) sense of that term. Though Schweid’s secular Israeli audience was often content with a purely secular articulation of “Judaism as a culture,” he himself wanted to dig deeper, to see if he could find (following the tradition of Bialik, Gordon, and Buber) a connection to a “free” (nondogmatic) religious faith. Thus, Schweid has articulated the theme of faith at various times throughout his writings, generally with qualifications or ambivalence. Indeed, the spirit of criticism cuts both ways for him on this issue. He is critical (as in the essay “Judaism as a Culture”) of a totally secular approach for not encouraging sufficiently strong commitment to Jewish ideas and practices to foster a strong sense of Jewish identification. At the same time, he is realistic enough to be aware of the intellectual and moral objections to a simple unquestioning faith. Schweid’s stance on this issue is influenced both by A. D. Gordon’s pantheistic faith inspired by communion with nature and by Martin Buber’s crucial distinction between the emotively focused “faith in” (God, life, hope) and the more dogmatic “faith that” (such-and-such religious affirmation is true). Another element in Schweid’s faith may perhaps be gleaned not from his constructive philosophical essays, but rather from the chapters in his historical studies that he devotes to Maimonides and Hermann Cohen (echoed also in his remarks on these thinkers in the interview below). Aḥad Ha-Am had stressed the importance of articulating the distinctive ethical teaching that may be derived from the Jewish tradition, but he shied away from providing this ethic with a religious grounding. Here, Schweid adopted an approach that he learned from the non-Zionist Hermann Cohen. It is particularly important to Schweid that our moral eliezer schweid: an intellectual portrait 15 commitment be fortified by the notion that all persons are sanctified by virtue of their connection with God. He uses the term zikkah (“relation” or “relatedness,” connected with Cohen’s “correlation”) both in the context of the interpersonal bond of ethical relations and in the context of the individual’s covenantal relation with family, community, and people. One can infer that Schweid would seek to deploy this sense of covenantal bond to reinforce both interpersonal ethics and the Jew’s commitment to perpetuate the Jewish legacy, both of which are in danger of fraying in a purely secular milieu. At the same time, he hesitates to play this card too strongly, for fear of violating the sense of individual autonomy that is a positive legacy especially of the modern humanistic tradition that he affirms.

Responses to Holocaust—Critique of Postmodernism

In the early 1990s Schweid paid considerable attention to the challenge that the Holocaust posed to Jewish faith. Within a few years he published two book-length studies of reactions of Jewish theologians to the Holo- caust (one focusing on ultra-Orthodox, the other on non-Orthodox thinkers) as well as another book devoted to the grappling with the problem of theodicy in classical Jewish thought. The second essay in the present book “Faith Confronting the Experiences of Our Age” was published in this same period and gives a glimpse to this side of his thought. Why, in the light of this spate of interest in the subject, has Schweid not chosen to adopt the label “post-Holocaust thinker”? We may find a clue in the fact that Schweid only addresses the issues of postmodernism and globalization dates after the period of his delving into Holocaust theologians. It is tempting to speculate that in reflecting on the issues that the Holocaust raises, Schweid decided to point the finger not at God (not surprising, as belief in a hands-on providential God has never been a live option for him), but at humankind. Here, Schweid takes on an additional role—that of social prophet.16 For the last fifteen years, he has repeatedly focused in his writings on the “crisis of humanism” of the late nineteenth

16 In his book Nevi’im le‘amam vela’enoshut (Prophets for their People and Humanity) (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999), Schweid portrays a representative selection of modern Jewish thinkers as “prophets”—an indication of the importance of this theme in his thought as a linkage between ancient and modern Jewish experience and values. 16 leonard levin century as a harbinger of both the totalitarian debacle of the twentieth century and the evils of the “postmodernist” age following World War II.17 The original classical Zionist thinkers assumed a consensual affirmation of humanist principles by all reasonable people. On this basis, they proposed a renaissance of Jewish national existence that would be the Jewish people’s particular implementation of those universally held principles. But by the 1990s, it was Schweid’s view that Western society no longer subscribed to the old humanist credo—indeed, that the totalitarian catastrophes of the twentieth century marked not just a temporary deviation from those principles, but the most extreme manifestation of a longer-term spiritual crisis within secular modernity that has still not been resolved. His late essays take up the cudgels in defense of the classical humanist principles that he still personally believes in, and that he believes must be the basis for a renewal of the spiritual Zionist ethos, as well as the basis of hope for all humanity. Schweid has delivered his critique of postmodernism in two install- ments—the long essay “Humanism, Globalization, Postmodernism, and the Jewish People” from his New Gordonian Essays in 2005,18 and the series of four essays comprising Critique of Secular Culture a few years later.19 Since these essays address the general public, they are written without the trapping of academic style, inviting the reader to reflect and respond directly. The four essays chosen for this volume cohere with each other, representing the gist of Schweid’s social and theoretical critique. For purposes of his critique, Schweid conflates two phenomena that are certainly not identical (though he tries to relate them as complementary): the intellectual skepticism typifying deconstructionism and the “new history,” and the free-market individualism underlying economic globalization. Though different in kind, both pose a threat to the notion of a cohesive Jewish community that can support an organic Jewish culture such as envisioned by spiritual Zionism. The latter is objectionable on other grounds as well—according to Schweid, in that it contradicts the

17 See especially the last three volumes of History of Modern Jewish Religious Philosophy (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2003–2006), in which responding to these crises in Western society becomes an organizing principle of understanding the thought of Jewish thinkers from Hermann Cohen through Buber, Rosenzweig, and the present. 18 Eliezer Schweid, Massot gordoniot ḥadashot (New Gordonian Essays) (Tel Aviv: Hak- kibutz Hameuchad, 2005). 19 Eliezer Schweid, Bikkoret hatarbut haḥilonit (Critique of Secular Culture) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2008). eliezer schweid: an intellectual portrait 17 fundamental vision of Jewish social ethics that he sees as deriving from the Levitical Jubilee legislation and the Deuteronomic law of “release,” positing communal solidarity under divine covenant as a counterweight to individual greed.20 On all these grounds, Schweid fulminates against hafrata—which literally means “privatization” but which signifies for him “hyper-individualism” and “social atomism.”21 His fundamental point is that granting unlimited sway to the rights of individuals undercuts both moral-economic responsibility to the welfare of the generality, and social responsibility to the continued existence of the cultural group. The first is a violation of Jewish ethical values as he sees them; the second is a threat to humanist cultural values in general and to the future of Jew- ish culture in particular. Thus, after a century of attempting to create a new Israeli society in the image of spiritual Zionism, one is faced with the hard challenge: Can authentic Jewish culture, based on a sense of group- identification and the culmination of unique cultural traditions, survive in an individualistic age when the common denominator of all value is the pursuit of pleasure and gratification in the economic marketplace? For spiritual Zionism to have a future in the twenty-first century, this challenge must be squarely addressed, both in Israel and in Diaspora Jewry. In these late essays Schweid expresses overall strong but tempered enthusiasm for the phase of Western humanist thought that extended from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, finding affinities between it and biblical ideals, and finding both equally threatened by the shift in values characteristic of the postmodern age. In the essay, “The Drama of Secular History: The Return to Nature and Exit from the Other Side,” he places all these value-systems side by side for comparative evaluation. As is typical of his method, he does not give unequivocal approbation to any of the approaches he depicts. Each had its faults, which led to development to the next. There are tradeoffs among them. Only by examining all of them sequentially can we address which values from each we must

20 For Schweid’s interpretation of these aspects of biblical legislation, see The Philoso- phy of the Bible as Foundation of Jewish Culture: Philosophy of Biblical Law, trans. Leonard Levin (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2008), 54–72. 21 Compare Daniel Bell’s remarks on the sociological discussion of “atomism” in his critical discussion of the notion of “mass society” in The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1960). Indeed, in The Cultural Con- tradictions of Capitalism (Boston: Basic Books: 1976, 1978), Daniel Bell—who calls himself an economic socialist, a political liberal, and a cultural conservative (all of which descrip- tions fit Schweid as well)—comes up with a critique of capitalist society that bears fruitful comparison with Schweid’s. 18 leonard levin emulate to arrive at the highest expression of our human potential for the current historical moment. Overall, Schweid seems to find the best hope for solving our dilemmas in recovering and combining the complementary insights of biblical monotheism and Enlightenment humanism.

Schweid as Intellectual Historian

One of the virtues of classical humanism that stood at the basis of cultural Zionism was the cultivation of a sense of history—especially of one’s own national legacy, in the context of universal human history. This virtue, too, has been rendered more difficult and questionable by the postmodern critique of the traditional practice of history, and indeed of the very notion of the “nation” as an essentially constituted entity.22 But Schweid’s own method as a historian stands squarely within that early-modern humanist historiographical tradition. Identifying with a particular (Jewish) national tradition, he studies its history (especially its intellectual history) in order to elicit its values and lessons for the current historical situation and provide these lessons with solid grounding, then ultimately to transmit the entire complex of historical knowledge, memories, and values to succeed- ing generations, for the sake of perpetuating that same national culture. In a reminiscence about his relationship with his teachers at the Hebrew University (Shlomo Pines, Gershom Scholem, and Isaac Baer),23 Schweid draws a contrast between their ethos of dispassionate historical scholarship and his own engagé approach.24 They were uncompromis- ingly devoted to the strict standards of philological method and scientific objectivity developed in the German academy and were suspicious of subjective identification with the subject-matter they were studying, or of seeking to derive applications from it to current problems. Schweid specu- lates that they adopted this method of academic detachment because of their need (and even more, the need of the previous generation of Ger- man-Jewish scholars) to cast off all suspicion of apologetic favoritism for

22 Schweid discusses this problem—the postmodern critique, and his rejoinder to it—in “History in the Postmodern Age” in Critique of Secular Culture. 23 Eliezer Schweid, “My Way in Research and Teaching,” in Limmud vada’at bemaḥshavah yehudit, ed. Ḥaim Kreisel (Be’er Sheva: Ben Gurion University of the Negev, 2006), vol. 2, 9–20. 24 In other respects, Schweid acknowledges that he was profoundly influenced by them, notably by their paying attention to the social-experiential context of thinkers and intellectual movements. eliezer schweid: an intellectual portrait 19 their heritage, and thus to prove “objectively” to a hostile audience of the worthiness of Jewish cultural and religious values in the court of gentile public opinion. He candidly admits that his own needs were the opposite of theirs—to reclaim the Jewish heritage as a living source of values for guiding life (in the spirit of Aḥad Ha-Am, Bialik, Gordon, and Buber) and to counter the debilitating influence of the “negators of the Diaspora” among his contemporaries. This, too, confirms his model of “historian as educator.” Was there a contradiction, then, between the self-identification of the historian as a member of the group whose history he was writing, and the ideal of scholarly objectivity? Ultimately, Schweid affirms the need to integrate these two ideals. The higher integration can be found on the plane of devotion to an ideal of universal culture, in which all specific national cultures share each other’s ideal creations and are enriched thereby. Such, indeed, was Nachman Krochmal’s ideal, in which he was clearly indebted to Hegel. Schweid claims Julius Guttmann as his mentor and model for doing Jewish intellectual history. In Volume 4 of History of Modern Jewish Reli- gious Philosophy, Schweid tells how it was originally Guttmann’s goal to demonstrate how Jewish philosophy culminated in its ultimate expression in the philosophy of Hermann Cohen; however, after dealing with Leo Strauss’s critique of his efforts, he revised his view and conceded that Jewish philosophy needs continually to be rewritten by every generation to express its own version of the Jewish traditional teachings. It is clear—especially if one compares this description to Guttmann’s actual historiographical achievement—how Guttmann wrote the history of Jew- ish philosophy from the perspective of a metaphysician, showing how the sifting of alternate views produced the Maimonidean outlook in the Middle Ages and the Cohenian outlook in modern times. If one then compares Schweid’s output of Jewish intellectual history with Guttmann’s, similarities and differences will be apparent. One of the similarities is Schweid’s agreement with Guttmann, against Strauss and Pines, on the interpretation of Maimonides. Both Guttmann and Schweid prefer the straightforward, “exoteric” reading of Maimonides’ Guide to the esoteric reading favored by Strauss, Pines, and the majority of contemporary Maimonidean scholars. This, in turn, is another exemplification of Schweid’s taking the role of “historian as educator.” For even on the reading of the esotericists, Maimonides incorporated two messages in the Guide, one for the general reader and one for the philosophic specialist, and Schweid is delivering to the general public the reading intended for them—the way that Maimonides as educator of the general Jewish 20 leonard levin public (which he was) wanted them to understand the teaching of their tradition. But the differences are also instructive. Guttmann’s selection of Jewish thought reflects his training in the German idealistic tradition of Kant and Cohen; it favors metaphysics and those branches of philosophy that contribute to the teaching of Judaism as a religion, for instance, its theory of revelation. It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that Guttmann focused on those aspects of Jewish philosophical thought that would be of interest to a Jew sitting in the synagogue and meditating on the nature of God, and the relation between the world and God as Creator. Ethics gets short shrift; political theory is hardly mentioned. Philosophy of history is notably absent; though Halevi has a lot to say about the history of Jewry in the light of God’s providential scheme, it is not in Guttmann. Nor does Guttmann include Azariah di Rossi among the Jewish Renaissance-period philosophers. By contrast, Schweid’s historiography reflects his inner identity as a spiritual Zionist. He has selected everything in the legacy of Jewish thought that would be of interest to an Israeli trying to understand how a people in exile for two thousand years nursed its hopes for return to a renewed political existence on its land. (He was also indebted to his teachers Gershom Scholem and Isaac Baer to pay attention to the social context of the development of intellectual ideas.) Halevi’s philosophy of history is there; so is Azariah di Rossi. There is a large section devoted to how Maimonides’ political theory is related to his theory of prophecy (certainly here he is indebted to Strauss and Pines). Maimonides as legist, laying down laws for the Jewish community, is combined with Maimonides the philosopher, to present a well-rounded leader of his people trying to guide them on all levels, reconciling the different contradictory spiritual- cultural tendencies in the society of their time. Schweid’s turn to modern Jewish thought was explicitly (as he openly confesses in a number of places) motivated by the desire to learn from recent history the lessons needed to guide the social and political actions of Jews in the present—a quest that already assumes one is operating within an orientation of “Judaism as a culture.” But his horizon was not limited, then or ever, strictly to the concerns of those Jews living in the State of Israel. It is noteworthy that though the emergence of Zionism from the crisis of modern European Jewry is a major theme of his treatment of Jew- ish thought in the modern period, he accords equal attention to religious and secular intellectual movements, as well as to those that had Diaspora Jewry as their focus and those that led to a solution to Jewish problems in eliezer schweid: an intellectual portrait 21 the Land of Israel. His book The Idea of Modern Jewish Culture25 is at the center of his thought as a creative philosophically grounded intellectual historian. Of all his books, it goes farthest in translating the theoretical orientation of “spiritual-cultural Zionism” into a methodology for doing Jewish intellectual history. Yet it is noteworthy for stressing that “Judaism as a culture” had at least two different major roads of implementation, the one leading from Leopold Zunz and Zechariah Frankel through Mordecai Kaplan, the other leading theorists from Krochmal through Aḥad Ha-Am to the modern State of Israel. The breadth of Schweid’s approach is also manifest in his including not just modern-Orthodox but also ultra-Orthodox thinkers in his treatment of Jewish thought in its various phases. In his magnum opus, his five-volume History of Modern Jewish Religious Philosophy,26 Schweid intersperses metaphysically oriented thinkers, religious reformers, and precursors of Zionism, while relating all of them back to their medieval precursors. Nothing important has been omitted from the kind of material Guttmann included, but the canvas has been expanded to give full treatment to historical, ethical, and political thought. It should also be pointed out that his intellectual history is thoroughly integrated on a higher level with his critique of modernity and postmodernism. The whole trajectory of late modern Jewish thinkers, starting with Hermann Cohen and proceeding through Buber, Rosenzweig, and the rest of twentieth-century Jewish thought, is organized around the topics of the response to the crisis of humanism and destruction of the European centers of Jewish life and thought, and the rise of the new Jewish centers of America and Israel. One would think, if Schweid’s critique of postmodernism and globalization were taken to its ultimate conclusion, that the very continued existence of Judaism as a culture would be in doubt in this, the postmodern age. After all, the besetting vice of this age is hyper-individualism, a reduction of everything in human existence to the calculus of private pleasure and private gain. This militates against the identification with the group that is the basis of group cultural life. Judaism as a culture can survive only if people can be educated to transcend their private purview and achieve (to use Hermann Cohen’s language) covenantal connection on several

25 Eliezer Schweid, Likrat tarbut yehudit modernit (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1995), translated by Amnon Hadary, The Idea of Modern Jewish Culture (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2008). 26 Eliezer Schweid, Toldot Filosofiat ha-Dat ha-Yehudit Ba-Zeman he-Ḥadash (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2001–2006), 5 vols. 22 leonard levin levels—with one’s fellow-person (in ethical reciprocity), and with one’s kinsfolk and one’s people. Perhaps this is where (departing from Aḥad Ha-Am’s secular assumptions, in favor of Gordon’s mystical approach) faith is most necessary, to provide the basis of covenantal connection, to renounce the idolatry of modern materialism and achieve a spiritual connection with one’s own people, as well as with humanity. Though Schweid warns against the danger of the unraveling of all religious and humanistic values in the postmodern age, he is clearly motivated in his writing for an intended audience of committed Jews, by the hope that the Jewish people will rally and be inspired by the account of its legacy to continue its covenanted existence—covenanted in responsibility to its past, to God, and to all humanity—into the future.

The Responsibility of Jewish Philosophy

What is the common denominator between the thought and achievement of Eliezer Schweid and the theme of “the responsibility of Jewish philosophy” that underlies this volume? First of all, Jewish philosophy as Schweid has articulated it is a teaching of how to live, following the biblical understanding of divine commandments (ve’asita otam). The Jewish philosopher is not concerned simply to achieve truth for truth’s sake, but rather truth for goodness’s sake. Philoso- phy is part of Torah (teaching), which seeks its fulfillment in practice, in hagshamah. Thus, philosophy is an enterprise that starts out within the prior context of assuming that one is responsible, and it teaches one how to live responsibly. But Jewish philosophy is also bounded by the context of Jewishness. Schweid was not born, nor did he live, in a state of undifferentiated universal humanity. He was born in Jerusalem in 1929, within a society of Jews trying to build a homeland within a context riddled with rifts and conflicts, in which the definition of Jewish peoplehood and the relation between Jews and non-Jews was integral to his very identity as a person. The answer to the basic question, “what constitutes my responsibility?” has always presented itself to Schweid in multilayered fashion: I am responsible to my fellow-person, to my family, to my community, to my people/nation, within the context of all humanity, covenanted on all these levels to God. “Judaism as a culture” is part of the basic fabric of a Jew’s existence and therefore must crisscross on several levels with a Jew’s responsibility. At the point of origin, every person is molded by the culture into which that eliezer schweid: an intellectual portrait 23 person is born. Every person learns a language—a specific language—that already marks the person as shaped by that culture in one’s intellectual, social, and practical development. The person’s notion of responsibility— though it exists in the abstract universally, transcending all culture—is learned concretely in terms mediated by that culture and defined by that culture. Thus Judaism defines “responsibility” in terms specified by the legacy of Jewish ethics, which will differ significantly from the terms defined by the legacy of Icelandic ethics, or Buddhist ethics, while still exhibiting a certain common denominator. But the relation of culture and responsibility works in the opposite direction as well. Every human being is responsible to perpetuate the culture in which they were raised; thus the Jew is responsible for fostering and perpetuating Jewish culture—in addition to being responsible for honoring his parents, and loving his fellow-person and the stranger, and defending the Jewish homeland on the one hand, while simultaneously working for the day when nation will not lift up sword against nation on the other hand. The acid of postmodernism and hyper-individualism eats away at responsibility on two levels. It eats away at the responsibility to one’s fellow-person and encourages one to live only for one’s own individual pleasure and power. It also eats away at the responsibility to one’s people and its culture. The question: “Which takes priority, the individual or the group?” is answered by traditional (Jewish and humanist) ethics in terms of the individual’s responsibility to the group, but by postmodernism in favor of the individual’s absolute rights, thus undermining the group’s coherence, if not its very existence. The reaffirmation of responsibility must counter the negative effects on both levels simultaneously— to reinstate the sense of social relationship (zikkah) to one’s immediate neighbor and fellow-person, and also to reinstate the sense of covenantal belonging to one’s people and assuming responsibility for maintaining its culture—which is in turn the matrix of values that reinforces the sense of responsibility. Eliezer Schweid is thus clearly within the Jewish tradition expressed in the maxim: “A person who studies so that he may teach, is given the opportunity both to study and to teach. A person who studies in order to put into practice, is given the opportunity to study, to teach, to observe the mitzvot, and to put them into practice.”27 We may rightly say that his notion of responsibility is as old as Jewish philosophy itself.

27 Mishnah (Pirkei) Avot 4:5.

Judaism as a Culture*

Eliezer Schweid

Jews experience their Judaism today in three ways. These are not, however, mutually exclusive. Whoever participates in one of them participates also in the two others through it. In any case, one of them generally occu- pies a primary place and is sometimes the basis for a defined worldview. These are Judaism as experience of fate, Judaism as experience of fulfilling the precepts of the Torah, and Judaism as a cultural experience. Each of the first two comprises several varieties, some in opposition to each other. Whoever experiences Judaism as a fate faces the choice of making one’s peace with it or refusing it, and his decision determines the variety of his experience. Whoever experiences Judaism as the fulfillment of religious precepts faces the choice of making one’s peace with the prevalent secular lifestyle or rejecting it, and this choice, too, will determine the character of his Jewish experience. But in this essay we will not detail these varieties and everything bound up with them. We shall deal in detail rather with the third way of experiencing Judaism, which is very difficult to define and also very difficult to defend in debate with the proponents of the worldviews based on Judaism- as-fate or Judaism-as-religious-observance. Nevertheless, its importance is very great, perhaps decisive, in shaping Judaism in the future. Why? First, because Judaism as a culture, while undefined, is the middle way between the two other ways of experiencing Judaism and conceiving it as a worldview. It is where the other two meet. Second, relating to Judaism as a culture is the most positive way of relating to Judaism that is possible for most Jews in our generation. Finally, the power of the cultural Jewish experience was manifested in the greatest project of the Jewish people in recent generations: building up the Land of Israel as a Jewish homeland. The pioneering core that established this project in its lifetime was only marginally influenced by a sense of being forced by fate or commanded in a religious sense. The greater part of this contingent was influenced by the aspiration to revive Judaism as a holistic culture. To the extent that the life-experience in the Land of Israel determines the image of Judaism

* Originally published in Eliezer Schweid, Emunat am yisrael vetarbuto (The Faith and Culture of the Jewish People) (Jerusalem: S. Zack and Co., 1976), 152–78. 26 eliezer schweid now, or will determine it in the future, the experience of Judaism as a culture will be central to it. But on the other hand, we can see that in our generation this experience is faced with a major difficulty. A culture depends on its being imparted from one generation to the next. It is a process of reception from a prior generation, independent creativity, and transmission to the coming generation. The generation that established the project of building Eretz Yisrael received a great deal from its parents, though it rebelled against them; it created a great deal on its own, but it failed in the task of transmission to the next generation, large portions of whom do not experience their Judaism as a plenitude of values and as a continuous, self-renewing creative process. There are some who deduce from this fact the simple conclusion that there is no chance, and also no need, for continuing the Jewish experience as a plenitude of distinctive values. A common Jewish fate brought Jews to the Land of Israel and welded them together as an Israeli constituency whose culture is thrown together from the four cor- ners of the earth and combined in the melting pot of their collective life in their land and their state. Some will also deduce from this fact the simple conclusion that only religious acceptance of the Torah and fulfillment of its commandments are authentic Judaism, and the task before us is to bring people into the fold, to attempt to return the many to the religious way, for only those who return to the religion will be saved for Judaism. The first represent as an ideal the possibility toward which probability so powerfully tends but whose real meaning is destruction. The second represent as an ideal the lesser possibility that exists for individuals (and it is still doubtful whether it is an entirely positive possibility even for them) while leaving the majority outside, which also implies destruction. Responsibility to the Jewish character of the entire people and responsibility for the plenitude of Jewish creativity dictate that we go back and grapple with the conception of Judaism as a culture in order to consider the causes of the crisis affecting it and in order to try to overcome it. This is the objective of the following discussion.

We shall not begin with a general definition of the concept of culture, but we shall indicate the sense of this concept in the narrow context of our discussion. What is Judaism as a cultural experience as opposed to Juda- ism as a fate or Judaism as religious observance? judaism as a culture 27

It is different from the first way inasmuch as it is a yearning to live in a plenitude of distinctive values. It is not content with a separate political framework through which Jews can defend themselves against hostile neighbors while creating an identical variant of the same culture as the neighbors who make them the butt of their hostility. It seeks a distinctive life, desired for its uniqueness. In other words, the Jew who experiences his or her Judaism as a culture refuses to see it as an accidental matter or misfortune. One chooses oneself as a Jew and seeks to express one’s choice in the fullness of one’s life. It is also different from the second way by its refusal to be obligated to any normative Judaism that was set in the past or to limit itself to the dimensions of spiritual achievements that were attained in the past. Juda- ism must be self-expression, and it must be full expression. The conception of Judaism as fulfillment of a specified set of precepts cannot meet these two criteria. It is not self-expression if it is conceived as an authoritatively binding norm, and it is not full but deficient and restrictive as compared with the realms of creativity that are manifested outside of Judaism. In other words, the Jew who experiences his or her Judaism as a culture seeks to reduce its obligatory character while expanding the compass of its contents. This person indeed knows that culture as self-expression is in need of the legacy of the past and has an element of obligation toward the past. Moreover, to the extent that the legacy of the past nourishes their efforts, they want to be obligated to it. But this is the precise character of a cultural outlook, that it conditions this obligation by the prior compatibility of the legacy to the aspirations of every generation. In other words, this is not an a priori obligation to a norm with fixed authority but a de facto obligation to the creativity immanent in a person’s personality or addressed to their purposes. Whoever identifies on the basis of one’s culture sees oneself as a priori free. What one perceives as good, one accepts and perpetuates; what one does not see as good, one rejects. As one does not see oneself as a priori obligated, one does not always operate by a clear criterion. What one has internalized in fact is dear to one, and one perpetuates it; what one has not internalized is strange to one, and one neglects it. Freedom—this is the secret of the attractive force of cultural identification, and this is also the source of the internal problematic of its transmission. What is the source of this problematic? Generally, cultural identification is transmitted from generation to generation based on the assumption that its legacy contains certain contents that are a priori and absolutely obligatory. Culture as such was always a transmission and reception of what was 28 eliezer schweid dear, desired, and appropriate, a legacy that changed from generation to generation. But its continuity was preserved by a stratum of contents that permeated it and yet stood apart from it. These contents were identified with the group’s religion—in Judaism, with the Torah. You will find on inspection that these also were reinterpreted in each generation and were understood in different, sometimes contradictory, ways in the context of decisive cultural changes. Yet in every generation they were conceived as absolutely and completely binding, and this sense of obligation made the culture that was suffused with them beloved, desired, and fitting. The novel shift that took place in this phenomenon was the attempt to isolate cultural identification from the contents that were conceived as a priori and absolutely binding, or to conceive them as part of a cultural legacy. Moreover, separating the cultural legacy from its obligatory religious basis was done in a surge of rebellion—sometimes rebellion only against the obligating authority, more often rebellion against both the authority and against a large portion of the contents that embodied the authority- principle, namely the halakhic contents. This fact laid its stamp on the cultural Jew’s attitude toward his legacy and made transmission itself a grave problem. The desire to cut oneself off from normative Judaism and to relate non-halakhically to those creative contents that developed within the domain of halakha raised a dilemma. In the very obligation that the cultural Jew assumed de facto toward those contents that were beloved and desirable to him was also a refusal: I hereby accept on myself these-and-these contents, but I refuse to accept them as authoritatively binding. To me they are a cultural legacy, nothing more! As we said earlier, a cultural connection is free in its essence, and a free connection is expressed in picking and choosing. But there are two ways of picking and choosing. The first way emphasizes the positive aspect of accepting the legacy and does not highlight the negative aspect. In other words, he who picks and chooses points out what he finds good and perpetuates it through his creativity. He does not reject what he dislikes, but he simply makes no use of it. The second way emphasizes the negative aspect of rejection, and it overshadows the positive aspect. He who picks and chooses points out what he finds that is bad, and he rebels against it and struggles against it. He does this de facto on the basis of elements that he accepted affirmatively but that he often does not bother to define or highlight. It seems that the cultural approach within the Jewish people in recent generations was established primarily in the second way. It started with a fierce rebellion that proceeded from the heart of a community that was well immersed in its heritage, and only later was the second pole of the judaism as a culture 29 ambivalent relationship, the pole of love, manifested within this rebellion. In the first generation, this was in any case a firmly rooted relation that bore rich creative fruits. But what was it possible to impart in this fashion to the second generation? It seems that the open refusal was transmitted much more strongly than the hidden love. It is said that Joseph Ḥayyim Brenner, of the writers whose creative output represents this phenomenon most sharply, was not willing to hear from his disciples the same bitter and harsh words that he had spoken, in their very hearing, about Judaism. Only he was allowed to say these things; they were forbidden. He had earned the right to criticize at the cost of suffering and love. They had not suffered, nor had they loved. This was an understandable human feeling, but one cannot impart love by means of it. At most, one can impart ambivalence toward values that are poorly understood by the listeners. The fear of obligation toward the Jewish heritage is more easily transmitted than the desire to be obligated. One should not be surprised, therefore, that the desire to be obligated that was felt by the second generation was in most cases the fruit of an inchoate feeling that something was missing, a desire directed to some unknown object.

The relation to Judaism as a culture was thus the result of a rebellion that led to separation between “religious” contents and cultural contents and to highlighting the negative aspect in picking and choosing. But from our standpoint, it is necessary to uncover the positive aspect: What was the basis of the desire to continue? Why did the Jew who rebelled against the Torah as faith and lifestyle refuse to assimilate? The simple answer that we find among writers and thinkers in the generation of the Jewish renaissance was the aspiration for self-determination. It seems that this aspiration was also the basis of the prevalent claim in that same literature that the Jews, even if they wanted to assimilate, could not do so, for the non-Jewish environment did not accept them. The refusal of the non-Jewish environment thus negatively restores to the Jews the consciousness that they are different. Wherein are they different? They are different in the cultural baggage that was internalized on various levels and that came to expression in a Jew’s behavior. In any case, the cultural Jew refused to surrender his self-determination, and the refusal was formulated in the outlook, characteristic of Zionist thought, that assimilation was an inauthentic form of behavior and therefore despicable. The assimilating Jews falsified something in their personalities, denied their 30 eliezer schweid identity, counterfeited through their external appearance what their inner sense demanded. Such conduct was viewed negatively both existentially and morally: it betrayed an obligation that a Jew had already assumed by virtue of upbringing and social belonging. In other words, through assimilation one broke faith with one’s people and with oneself. Indeed, if we want to uncover the positive element of the cultural experience of Judaism in our age, we should delve deeper into the issue of authenticity. Why was assimilation inauthentic conduct? How does it fal- sify one’s personality? How is it the opposite of self-determination? The answer that arises from these inchoate musings, which are essentially a matter of feeling, is that one is speaking in effect of the continuity of personal life with respect to a person’s belonging to one’s life-process as an individual and one’s belonging to the society in which one grew up, to one’s family, one’s community, one’s people. Self-determination in this context is preservation of continuity in a conscious and open way. A person who ignores the fact that he or she has internalized certain values from his or her Jewish upbringing and does not give open expression to these values in his or her daily life denies his or her selfhood. A person who ignores the fact that she belongs to the society in which she was born and raised and does not give open expression to her belonging in her daily life denies herself. She does not give expression to what is within her. It thus makes sense that the Jew who rebelled against the Torah as a faith and lifestyle also refused to sever the continuity of his or her personal and social life. Since one had been raised in a lifestyle of the Torah and its precepts, one sought to perpetuate it outside of its original domain, not as a lifestyle of Torah and commandments, but as a culture. The aspiration to preserve continuity is the key. If we try to isolate the components of the continuity, we shall be dealing with the totality of contents of this cultural identification. It rests on several dimensions of the continuity of self- consciousness, which consists in preserving the connection between past and future and insuring it for the future: continuity of national belonging, continuous connection to language and literature, continuity of the relation to history, and continuity of ethos, expressed at least in several components of a way of life. For our purpose, we must examine each of these dimensions of the continuity of self-consciousness.

A Jew who relates to Judaism as a culture wants first of all to perpetuate the connection to the society in which he or she grew up. Affiliation with judaism as a culture 31 one’s people is affirmed as a value, even when one harbors sharp criticism of its way of life and its manner of existence. Since one was born a Jew and grew up among Jews, one sees oneself responsible for them in the rubric of family, community, and people. One does not always love one’s people, but even one’s hatred of them is an expression of de facto obligation. It does not occur to one that one may cast off all responsibility for one’s people. We should emphasize this feeling of responsibility because under the conditions of existence of the Jewish people it was raised to the level of an independent value: ahavat Yisrael [love of the Jewish people]. This is not just participation in a common fate but participation in a common ethos that was sanctified as a way of life. “All Israel are responsible for each other.” It follows that the mutual responsibility that came to expression in deeds was already tantamount to the connection to a value that characterized Jewish culture. And indeed the Jewish national movement, which took shape primarily within a visibly Jewish society, was intended first of all to perpetuate Jewish collective existence. This collective existence appeared to the founders of Jewish nationalism as something that was impossible to abolish. There was a living, tangible Jewish people—suffering and longing, quarreling and struggling, and by virtue of all this obligating its members. One must find a way to insure its continued existence in security. The leaders of Zionism were sure that, if a framework could be fashioned that would enable Jews to live together in freedom and security, there would no longer be a need for an intentional reformulation of the official tenets of Judaism. Whatever Jews created together voluntarily would inevitably be Jewish and would inevitably provide that continuity. Zionist ideology, therefore, did not talk about tenets that characterized Jewish society; it spoke only of the conditions that would insure their existence as a self-determining society. The theoretical works that were generated on the topic of building the Jewish society—a rich body of writing, often original not only in its formulations but also in its prescriptions—dealt with the economic, political, and cultural relations that would guarantee the existence of a solid society capable of standing on its own. Whoever examines the prescriptions that were offered in this body of thought and the practice that was guided by it will find, of course, that they were pervaded by influences absorbed from outside. Liberal and socialistic ideals were put into practice in the shaping of Eretz Yisrael’s society. No one considered this as assimilation because the influence was not in the service of cutting oneself off from collective Jewish existence but rather saving and fostering that collectivity. This intention preserved Jewish continuity, even though such a great 32 eliezer schweid revolution occurred in the traditional social structures that hardly a stone of it was left intact. How, then, was the motif of Jewish continuity expressed in the new Jewish society? Hardly at all. Nevertheless, one cannot deny that the society that was created not only continued the collective existence of Jews but in its very being perpetuated certain of its characteristics in a prominent way. To be sure, these characteristics had their source in the fate of the Jewish people rather than in its legacy. They were the effect of an exceptional social-national function: restoring an exiled people to its land and building from the ground up an economy, a polity, a society, and a culture. Paradoxically, the totality of the revolution is what guaranteed the continuity of the social identity. For no other people except the Jew- ish people was forced to carry out such a total and fundamental revolution in order to insure its collective existence. But this uniqueness greatly strengthened the recognition that being together was the cultural value expressed in this creative effort. The Jew who identified with the new Jewish society found in it a plenitude of positive values in which he or she could express his or her Judaism.

We said above that according to the conception that aspired to the continued collective existence of a Jewish society, one need not worry about specific cultural content, for such content was bound to arise by itself. But this was not exactly the case. Jewish nationalist-cultural thought kept faith with an additional dimension of continuity of identity-consciousness in which it saw the experiential reality of collective existence—namely, the linguistic dimension. Jewish society had to be a Hebrew-speaking society, creating literature, philosophy, and science in the Hebrew language. The revival of the Hebrew language preceded the renaissance of Jew- ish society in the Land of Israel. It was the condition for the existence of a self-determining Jewish society. Indeed, this linguistic continuity was bound up with a revolution and expressed rebellion against a state of exile. The fidelity to Hebrew was accompanied by a negative attitude to Yiddish as the language of Jewish life in exile. Yiddish was conceived as the quintessence of exile existence and Hebrew as the language of the Homeland. One did not know what weighed more heavily in the fidelity to Hebrew: the negative attitude toward Yiddish or the positive attitude toward the language of national creation that united all the people’s judaism as a culture 33 scattered remnants. In any case, the decision to revive Hebrew as the spoken language and language of creativity carried with it more than the distinctiveness and unification of a society speaking a separate language. It carried with it an inspiration of values—an inspiration of an entire literary and thought legacy. This fact was not ignored by the leaders and thinkers of the national Jewish movement. On the contrary, it merited special emphasis. Thus one finds in the Hebrew writing of the generation of the Jewish renaissance, not less than in the Hebrew speaking of that generation, a surplus of meaning expressing identification. A Jew who spoke Hebrew and wrote Hebrew did not rest content with having transmitted to the next person a certain content; he or she sought to emphasize the Hebraic character of the utterance as a value unto itself, as if to say, “Look and see, this is no ordinary language coming from my mouth! I am speaking Hebrew; note its unique character, its structure and style, its connection to the sources; note my deliberate articulation.” It would seem that the transition to Sephardic pronunciation proceeded from the same need—to leave behind the pronunciation influenced by Yiddish and to emphasize the Hebraic character of Hebrew. There is no more prominent expression of the aspiration to cultural identification with Judaism. The connection between people and language is a famous one that needs no explanation. Still, in our context it is important to emphasize the connection between language and culture in elaborating the notion of a dynamic continuity that imposes no a priori obligation. A cultural connection in this sense is first of all a linguistic connection. For language carries its history within it as an accumulation of all the possibilities of speech that were spoken in it and as a style of thought, and nevertheless it is open to an infinity of possibilities of speech in the future. The better one knows one’s language, the richer are one’s powers of self-expression. One selects from the treasures at one’s disposal those available to one in order to express with precision one’s thoughts and the feelings of one’s heart. In other words, in language the elements of every kind of thought are available in stock but not assembled. A person can exploit them without being obligated to them and can perpetuate them while changing them. If this is the case in any language, it applies with greater force to Hebrew, which developed not as a spoken but as a literary language. The layers of the language are layers of literary creativity written in the language, and the literary output we are dealing with is first and foremost the totality of canonical sources on which the thought-world of Judaism stands: the Bible, the Mishnah, the legends of the rabbis, the Midrash, the moralistic 34 eliezer schweid literature, philosophy, commentators, the legal codes and Responsa, and Hasidic literature. The implications of this fact are far-reaching. Through the Hebrew language, the cultural Jew can relate in a living, creative way to the normative sources of Judaism without being obligated to specific contents. One can express through them one’s own experiences, thoughts, and aspirations. If you like, you can say that this is the latest round of exegetical relation to the sources, a mode of relating that is characteristic of Jewish thought in all generations. But an exegetical approach, even if it brings revolutionary innovations, sanctifies the authority of the sources! Yet what we have here is not an exegetical approach but self-expression that uses the sources. Aaron David Gordon expressed this well when he said that the Bible is important for him not for what is already said in it but for what it is still possible to say by virtue of what is already said in it. The potential of expression of the sources, the linguistic richness preserved in them, is the main thing. Take to heart: the intention is not simply linguistic manipulation, although the danger of this is near and present. Sometimes the values are forgotten and elided from the forms of expression, leaving only a burdensome surfeit of linguistic embellishment. But we are speaking primarily of an intrinsic relation to content. One who resorts to the forms of expression of the sources knows their association of ideas and taps into them in order to arrive through them at a new meaning. One thus experiences the contents that shaped one’s language as stages of unfolding of one’s spiritual world, and when one arrives through them at one’s new ideas, the earlier ideas continue to accompany one’s own, as in musical harmony when diverse tonalities blend into a unified sound. Modern Hebrew literature produced a series of monumental works of this kind, works in which one can see a revolutionary continuation of the traditional relation to the sources: the stories of Mendele Mokher Sforim, the poems of Ḥayyim Naḥman Bialik, the tales of Shmuel Y. Agnon. The creative effort did not cease with these three great writers. It was characteristic of their entire generation, as well as of the outstanding Hebrew writers of a more recent age, though with important differences in their stylistic evocation of the past legacy: Avraham Shlonsky, Natan Alterman, S. Yitzhar, and others. In all these cases, linguistic identification provided a way of identifying experientially with the sources without an a priori obligation to them. They bound themselves to the past through a creative act that constituted a new link in the chain. judaism as a culture 35

Identification with Jewish society (and following from it, of course, identification with and a feeling of responsibility for the fate of the Jewish people) and identification through linguistic expression combine into a third mode of Jewish cultural identification, a mode that has considerable weight in its own right: the relation to history. In the religious Jewish way of life, history is present as a dimension of ever-present obligation, whether as the continuous succession of textual sources that build on one another, or as the ever-repeated experience of historical memory, which has been given structural significance by being canonized in the festival calendar. The Jew who conceives his or her Judaism as a cultural experience regards the historical dimension as an aspect of continuity. For such a person, this is a vital connection to the past as such, so one strives to broaden one’s knowledge of the past far beyond what was required for purposes of maintaining the religious lifestyle. The cultural Jew’s relation to his or her history differs from the religious Jew’s in two respects. First, one has an interest in the past as such, as a memory of what is not present, though it exerts no direct obligation. Second, one is interested in the full scope of the past to the extent that it can be retrieved from surviving testimonies. There is a clear connection between what we just said on the relation to the Hebrew language and what we are saying now about the relation to history. The connection can be seen in two aspects of a single relation to the sources. In linguistic creativity, the past streams forth into the present. In historical contemplation, the present is rooted in the past—again, without obligation. The past is the place from which the roots draw; from it, one can be nourished. But presenting it as past, no longer present, lib- erates one from every a priori obligation. The past does not obligate. It is interesting, sometimes riveting. The cultural Jew needs to discover the full extent of the past, the same extent that the authoritarian religious Jew covered up, whether out of ulterior motive or lack of interest. Why does the cultural Jew want to know the past exactly as it was, in its full extent? We should not ignore, in this context, the negative, rebellious motive. The modern historian has an interest in proving that the past is different than the image presented in the past. For presenting it from the viewpoint of the authoritarian outlook omitted essential parts or completely falsified its image. Nevertheless, out of this negative motive one can discern in the changed relation to the past the desire both to present 36 eliezer schweid knowledge of the present as a model for knowledge of the past and also to present the ways of knowing the present as a model for ways of knowing the past. By doing so, one anchored the present in the past in all the aspects of life and creativity that it manifested and established continuity in every respect. See how the interest in the sources has broadened and how much it pushes the sources to give testimony on what they had not given testimony previously! One reads the sources in order to discover the political, economic, and social history and even the science and folklore of the time in which they were written. Traditional learning was not interested in these topics, and one may say that the sources themselves were not written with the intention of relating these matters. But the cultural Jew feels the need to discover them in order to discover the full extent of one’s interest and creativity in the present in the dimension of the past to which one is connected. One exchanges the religious question (“what is the norm that obligates my conduct in the present?”) for the historical question (“how is our present reality rooted in the given factors of the past?”). One describes the past in the categories of the present in order to find meaning in it. Or, if you prefer, one aspires that the present should be grasped as a goal toward which the past was aiming as the end limit of the meanings of history, and in this way the present shall also receive the meaning of destiny. It is as if it had to be the way that it is. It seems that this is the meaning of the cultural Jew’s desire to find a proof text for his or her ideals in Jewish history or the canonical sources. Look how hard the Zionists strove to discover the foundations of their secular national outlook in the messianic movements and how hard the Jewish socialists labored to uncover the origin of socialism in biblical prophecy and the origin of communism among the Essenes! The same holds true regarding other national and social ideals, even scientific or esthetic ones. Discov- ering ideals such as these in history, even through forced interpretation, provided them with vital validation. Vital in what respect? Were these national, social, scientific, and esthetic ideals not valid in their own right? The cultural Jew is liable to fall prey to perplexity when one is questioned in this way, but one’s perplexity is the result of an ideological definition that is not attuned to one’s motivations. Surely one’s ideals are valid in their own right. One is not laboring to justify them through the Jewish sources but rather to confirm a dimension of continuity in one’s cultural life. One seeks to confirm that one’s present aspirations are authentically grounded in his Jewish identity. But in another respect, one regards it as no less important to demarcate the differences between the past and present. The cultural Jew does not efface oneself before the legacy of the past judaism as a culture 37 but draws it toward oneself. One wants to see oneself as the climax or goal of a protracted development. In these two respects, relating to Judaism culturally means relating to it historically.

It would seem we have dealt so far with a Jewish identification expressed both in national-cultural creativity and in linguistic, literary, and scholarly creativity, or the study of the same. It would seem that these two aspects of Jewish identification do not express themselves in a distinctively Jewish life regimen. But this impression would not be correct. First of all, the creation of a social-national project, whose concern is building a nation from the ground up, requires the transmission of a whole way of life. It thus requires expression in a life regimen. Second, it requires literary creativity and even historical research and the motivation to become interested in history and to study its sources—all these reflect an existing life regimen, and they in turn help to shape it. One should recall that modern Hebrew literature was a literature with a distinct mission. It came to demand action and creation in an existing society. And finally, if one continues to perpetuate a common social life and a continuous relation to the sources, one maintains at the same time certain elements of a life regimen. Conti- nuity is required in this respect as well, even though one is exchanging a fixed normative approach for one allowing freedom of choice. We are referring to the fact that the new Jewish society preserved many patterns of behavior whose source was indeed in an existence shaped by halakha, but was not therefore only the result of habit or rote. The cultural Jew chose these patterns and attributed meaning to them in his own contexts. He knew that some of these patterns were considered commandments of the Torah, and he also knew that keeping them as Torahitic commandments had a distinct religious meaning. But he thought that it was possible and permitted to assign them a different meaning and that this was not necessarily a falsification. The Torah’s commandments took shape in a complex historical reality. They guided a holistic life regimen and in that context took on several layers of meaning. Within the religious meaning were enfolded national, social, ethical, esthetic, and recreational meanings, and no falsification is involved in releasing these meanings from the religious framework and presenting them in their own right. The cultural Jew can be said, therefore, to have observed certain mitzvot without seeing them as commandments in the religious sense. 38 eliezer schweid

This process occurred in two different realms. The first of these is the realm of interpersonal behavior. One commonly finds in modern Jewish thought the claim that the Jewish faith is unique in its ethical emphasis. It can be defined as ethical monotheism. God is conceived as the source of the ethical imperative, and man stands before God in his love for the fellow person who was created in the divine image. The cultural Jew deduced from this the conclusion that he would show fidelity to Judaism’s deepest values by upholding its ethical values governing interpersonal relations. If he accepts these values not as a command imposed on him by virtue of an external authority but out of a recognition of the obligation of conscience, perhaps he will even stand on a higher level than the religious Jew, especially insofar as one may see in religious Judaism a tendency to value the ritual commands over the interpersonal commands. It is easy to show that this outlook is superficial and weak in its understanding of ethical monotheism, in its understanding of the status of ritual obligations in religious Judaism, and in its assumption that extracting the ethical principle from its religious framework does not negate its unique Jewish character. But pointing out the superficiality and weakness of this view does not change a fact of life: the cultural Jew identified as a Jew with certain patterns of interpersonal behavior. Note that this identification was not concretized in his intellectual views concerning ethics but in his life patterns and the shaping of his moral character. Even if the argument is correct that the principles of ethics, at least in Western culture, are not the unique property of one national culture or another but are addressed to all human beings in their humanity, nevertheless the ethos expressed in the patterns of conduct and in the shaping of the personality are indeed unique in each national culture, especially in each national culture that was shaped under the influence of a separate religion. Every such culture has its own distinctive model of ethical conduct, and every such culture educates its members to the goal of achieving a characteristic ideal ethical personality. We cannot deny that under the influence of the halakhic regimen a distinctive ethical character was imprinted on Jewish society and that this ethical character has its own power, a power that was not dependent on halakha. On the contrary, at times the moral character would have a rebound effect and shape the halakhic norms. Its power was the power of a living reality, operating in an unmediated fashion on every particular. Did it not have the potential to influence the life habits and character of a person who was educated in Jewish society even after he had cast off the yoke of religious observance? Indeed, we should emphasize straightaway that in this realm a fierce ambivalence was manifested. The cultural Jew who rebelled against the judaism as a culture 39 substance of Jewish life in exile also rebelled against a certain portion of the patterns of life that built up the Jewish ethos and that shaped the Jewish personality even in the ethical realm. Zionism was not only a national-political ideology; it strove to shape a new Jewish ethos and a new image of Jewish personality. Especially influential in this respect was the aspiration to overcome the Jewish people’s weakness and to burnish its strength. Zionism forged an ethos of Jewish strength that came to crystal- clear expression in the life patterns of the new Jewish society in Eretz Yisrael, and this ethos had a prominent component of “negation of the Diaspora” directed not only at the political situation of Jewry but also at its social and ethical mode of being. But the cultural Jew sought to ground this ethos, too, in internal sources. He strove for a vision of continuous Jewish strength that had never died out. Especially characteristic in this respect was the ideological and pedagogical activity of Berl Katzenelson. So much for the first realm, the realm of interpersonal conduct. The second realm is harder to define. It includes a broad spectrum of behavioral rubrics that the cultural Jew defines as “tradition” while necessarily interpreting this concept as being different than its original sense. It embraces on the one hand the highest forms of expression of the Jewish person in his or her society: the Sabbath, the holidays, introduction of the newborn into the Jewish covenant, bar/bat mitzvah, marriage, and bereavement. On the other hand, it includes the more common expressions of folk life: song and poetry, dance, storytelling, humor, and the like. The cultural Jew does not miss out on any of this. Some elements of these acquire great importance in the context of his or her worldview and lifestyle. Of the second category, the folkloristic, we need say no more. It is natural that Jewish folklore, in its richness and variety, should be accorded higher importance by the cultural Jew than by the religious Jew, especially the traditional scholarly type. Even in the traditional religious perspective, folklore constituted the realm of the nonobligatory legacy, and this was indeed the sense that the concept “tradition” acquired in the mind-set of the cultural Jew. The same movements in Judaism that valued folkloristic creativity and ascribed to it a supreme religious significance and enriched it—especially the Hasidic movement—have till this day a special attraction for the cultural Jew, more than any other movements in Judaism. In them she finds many points of connection to her own thought-world. However, the cultural Jew also received many of the higher forms of expression, without relating to them as commandments, without rigidly adhering to their halakhic norms, and with an effort to ascribe a new meaning to them: rest for the worker, social equality, personal and national freedom, yearning for redemption from exile, strength, 40 eliezer schweid fellowship and friendship, the joy of returning to the land and to working the soil, the joy of returning to contact with nature, the significance of the cycle of seasons in nature—summer and winter, autumn and spring, sowing and planting, reaping and harvest. Again we should not ignore the negative component of this conception. It expressed the motif of rebellion against the substance of Jewish being in exile and the aspiration to shape a new Jewish ethos, an ethos of a nation dwelling on its own land. This was expressed also in the ranking of preferences and contents. Holi- days whose importance was marginal in the halakhic life regimen, such as Hanukkah and Purim, Tu B’Shevat and the Fifteenth of Av, and even Lag Ba-Omer, acquired more importance. On the other hand, Rosh Hasha- nah and Yom Kippur, which were of supreme importance in the tradition, became problematic because of the religious meaning associated with them. Needless to say, the content of these holidays sometimes changed to the point of unrecognizability. Nevertheless, continuity was preserved, and some elements were stubbornly maintained without change. Charac- teristic in this respect was the ambivalent relationship to Yom Kippur. It was very difficult for the cultural Jew to find a meaning for it that was in keeping with his own worldview and lifestyle, but knowing the supreme importance of Yom Kippur in the Jewish heritage did not allow the cultural Jew to ignore it. In the end, he ascribed to this day the meaning of solidarity with the Jewish people, because that was the subjective reason on account of which it was impossible for him not to mark it with some act of participation. One sees here a striking manifestation of the desire for continuity of cultural identity for its own sake.

A great measure of disquiet always accompanied the cultural Jew in shaping his life regimen. He found himself constantly searching and felt dissatisfaction with his accomplishments. The desired wholeness was always out of reach, stemming, first, from the difficulty in maintaining a traditional pattern extending to a whole social unit without established authority and, second, from the inner discontinuity between the traditional rubrics and those rubrics that were fashioned under the influence of secular European culture. The feeling of inauthenticity was awakened precisely in this context and followed from the disconnect that occurred between the working days and the Sabbaths and holidays even with the new meanings that they tried to assign to these and finally from the uncertainty that these rubrics were precisely the rubrics that were worthy of being perpetuated judaism as a culture 41 as vessels of expression of the new Jewish society. It seems that all these three factors are interconnected. This applies particularly to those occasions in which some personal expression of the meaning of life was called for: the birth of a child, the entrance into maturity, marriage, bereavement. Or days of commemoration expressing recent historical experience: Holocaust Memorial Day, Memorial Day for the casualties of Israel’s wars, Israeli Independence Day. One wanted symbolic expression of a faith and worldview on such occasions. The traditional rituals expressed faith and a worldview, and the cultural Jew reached out to them from the depths of his heart but was necessarily repulsed lest he be false at a time that demanded honesty. The result was ambivalence. We have here a series of polar-opposed responses, sometimes in the same person. Some respond with refusal and prefer with pathos the tragic situation of the unbeliever, who takes on the responsibility for his life and does not rely either on faith or on tradition. But on the other hand, this Promethean gesture is not amenable to social institutionalization. As the author of this gesture lives in a Jewish society, he cannot rid himself of the ceremonies that have become a part of its public life—circumcision, bar mitzvah, mourning rituals. Thus he participates in them but with inner reservations, against his will—even though he well knows that he is forced into it not by irresistible social pressure but by his own weakness, his inability to offer any other symbolic expression called for by these situations. Some respond nostalgically to an experience beyond their comprehension. They are reminded of what they saw in childhood or have read, and they idealize a primal experience that, by virtue of its remoteness, stands in opposition to the present situation. The yearnings for some lost perfection permit these responders to resort to traditional symbols affirmatively, even with a view to their renewal. But in most cases disillusionment is the unavoidable accompaniment because these symbols no longer flow from the full context of a life regimen and cannot recreate it as a mode of personal expression. Finally, there are those who respond out of identification and a readiness to creative self-expression. When such a response is awakened, a new type of Jewish identification-experience takes shape, a type that stands on the boundary between Judaism-as-culture and Judaism-as-Torahitic-life- regimen—the type of the Masorti (tradition-affirming) Jew.1

1 Masorti: “traditional”; Israeli parlance for a Jew who stands between dati (“religious” in an Orthodox sense) and ḥiloni (“secular”). Though both the Reform and the Conserva- tive branches of Israeli Jews can be said to fit this pattern, the type Schweid is describing comprises mostly unaffiliated Israelis who seek out this form of Jewish identification and lifestyle on their own. (LL) 42 eliezer schweid

His distinctive trait lies in the recognition that faith is the defining and characteristic principle of the Jewish way of life, for there is no culture without obligation to an absolute value, which as such is transcultural, and so a person must rediscover the meaning of religious faith if indeed he is to find authentic expression for himself in the Jewish culture. The tradition-affirming Jew is thus able to grapple affirmatively with the religious Jewish worldview and is able to adapt creatively, for himself at least, certain parts of the symbolic rubrics of expression of faith—the prayers, the blessings, the Kiddush, and the ceremonies connected with them. He is ready even to adapt himself to framing rubrics that determine a life regimen and distinguish it in its broad scope, such as refraining from violating the Sabbath or the dietary laws. But this does not constitute a return to the life regimen of Torah and mitzvot in its original sense. The Masorti Jew is loyal to the cultural mode of identification inasmuch as he is not ready to accept the comprehensive framework as obligatory a priori. He chooses that which is addressed to him, and he seeks the spontaneous experience, ever self-renewing, of the traditional rubric. It seems that precisely because he aspires to complete identification, it is difficult for him to accept the rubrics of the tradition in advance. He feels strangeness toward many parts of them, and he will not resort to them until he finds meaning in them from his perspective. From his perspective, too, the rubrics of faith-expression are a cultural legacy. You could say that ambivalence, struggle, and constant searching are major diagnostic signs of the mode of cultural identification on all its levels and in all its forms. There should not be any surprise at this result, which follows inevitably from the conflict that lies at the foundation of the aspiration to continuity as well as to renewal and change. The conflict between these aspirations is essential to the cultural conception and all the more so to the conception that was developed out of “negation of the Exile.” In the last sentences, the problematic aspect of cultural identification is foregrounded. But the purpose of this discussion is first of all for us to consider its significance and importance. It is quite easy to challenge its ideological framework, but we discover its power when we examine it as an experience. “Judaism as a culture” is not an empty slogan. It is expressed in a body of creative work, and we need to stand in thankfulness and respect for what it perpetuated and what it renewed. The rebirth of Jew- ish nationalism, the rebirth of Jewish society in the Land of Israel, the rebirth of the Hebrew language, the rebirth of Hebrew literature, forging an ethos and image of Jewish personality—an ethos of independence, of strength, of social cooperation, of love of the Land of Israel with its nature judaism as a culture 43 and its landscapes—all these are a huge achievement that one must not disparage and that are indispensable. One cannot imagine a continuation of Jewish creativity in the future that does not embrace these achievements as its major cultural assets. Moreover, cultural identification is the only fruitful alternative to the path of assimilation and Jewish self-denial for the vast majority of the Jewish public. The vast majority is not open to a total life regimen of Torah and mitzvot, but it is open to a cultural creative approach, and only through such an approach can it access the concepts and life-style components of the Torah. If there is any chance of forging a common denominator, it alone can foster a fruitful encounter even among those from opposite ends of the spectrum. If we take the time here to analyze the weaknesses and problematics of the way of cultural identification, it is our intention not to undermine it and negate it but to find a way to save it from disintegration and to present it as a way to foster a Jewish way of life in our land. We said at the start of this essay that the problematics of cultural Juda- ism focus on the issue of its transmission. This form of Judaism experienced a major creative period, but it seems that at the time it dismantled many forces that had been put together for several generations preceding it. The generation that came immediately after received only a small portion of those forces, and the cultural renaissance dwindled and declined. This process can be seen in all the areas that we discussed. We shall not spend much time on the social realm. From the outset, the new Jewish society did not preserve the traditional rubric of the community, and when the State of Israel was established and the tendency to rely on external organizational frameworks prevailed, the original social values of cultural Judaism started to fade; when that happened, the consciousness of the historical continuity of social life was swept aside. Life was focused on an organized rubric oriented entirely to the present. Socialization became more superficial and external. Thus a sense of belonging to the historical social reality of a people, as opposed to the social existence of the state, became vague and hardly understood. A similar process can be recognized in the linguistic realm. Hebrew became the spoken language, and its victory over Yiddish was definitive. As a spoken language, Hebrew became immeasurably enriched in its vocabulary and idioms, while at the same time it became more sim- plified and flexible. But at the same time, it rapidly became forgetful of its past. The most striking external manifestation of this process is imitative adaptation: the incorporation of syntactic structures characteristic of other languages and the uncritical adoption of foreign words. The Hebrew 44 eliezer schweid language was ravished and perverted in order to take on a style of expression characteristic of French or English, of Arabic or Russian, and the influx of words that it had to absorb from all of these amounted to flood proportions. This development was of course an inevitable phenomenon of immigrant absorption. But this inevitable process was accompanied by an inner attitude of belittling language as an instrument of cultural- historical identification. Preserving Hebrew’s native linguistic structures and a precise understanding of its words and idioms seemed tasteless pedantry to many. Speakers’ interest is focused on the present, on the message content that they want to communicate to their interlocutor, whereas preserving the integrity of the Hebrew language is regarded as a superfluous burden, not only in speech but also in writing. It should thus be no surprise that the rich layers of meaning of the Hebrew language are progressively forgotten. Whoever wants to consider the significance of this process should step into any school during the instruction in Hebrew literature and examine what portion of the rich meanings of a Bialik poem or an Agnon story a student is able to absorb, even with a teacher and a concordance at his disposal. This is the same process that characterizes the social realm. Historical perspective is foreshortened, and a superficial, external existence takes its place. Forgetting the past in language is both the result and the cause of forgetting the canonical sources. The proponents of cultural Judaism did not at first see any need to teach the rabbinic sources. They were wedded to the Bible on the one hand and to modern Hebrew literature on the other. Between these two poles, they indicated the connecting line by means of a few scattered dots: a bit of Mishnah, two or three pages of Talmud, some rabbinic legends, a few selections from medieval religious thought, and several poems from the Spanish Golden Age. So the Bible and modern Hebrew literature were given pride of place in cultural Jewish education. But it quickly became clear that they were not given the same rank from the learners’ side as from the instructors’ side. The student imbibed far less in these areas than what his teachers wanted to transmit to him. Or did they really seek to impart the Bible and Hebrew literature to him? If one were to examine the place of these sources in the broader context of cultural life, and not just in the time of classroom instruction, the answer would be far from definitive, and whoever were to pay attention to the manner of instruction would discover the same vagueness at the time of instruction. The sources were not studied as sources, that is, as compendia of values with meaning for the present. They were studied as history divorced from the present. No wonder that the living connection to them dwindled and declined. judaism as a culture 45

Of course, the relation to the continuity of social existence and the relation to the sources determine one’s relation to history. We have an exactly parallel picture. At first, as of prime importance, one studied the history of the biblical period and the history of Zionism. A certain importance was placed on the Second Temple period. But the period of the Middle Ages, the period of the transition to modern times, and the modern period itself (except for Zionism) presented a major problem. These periods were pointed out but not studied, and it did not take long for it to become clear that the real learning was much less than the instruction even on the important periods. The very interest in history was in question. We find again that the reason was parallel to the reason for forgetting the canonical sources. The place of history in the full scope of cultural life was constricted. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the place of cultural life in its full scope was itself constricted. Willy-nilly, history had become irrelevant to the present. Need one add in detail what the situation was with the Jewish ethos in its two layers? A few external forms are observed. But their observance is more and more a result of their political institutionalization. The content is progressively enfeebled and reduced, not only the content of the traditional ethos but even the content of the new ethos that cultural Judaism sought to implement as the way of life of a people that returned to its land. In all these senses, cultural Judaism succeeded in imparting neither the values from which it had been nourished nor the values that it created on its own.

It is my hope that the previous remarks have elucidated the causes of the process under discussion. We need only present them now in an explicit and ordered fashion. First, we should take note of the influence of the development of West- ern culture in its totality: the increasing power of the sovereign state relative to the power of society; the influence of a scientific-technological culture focused on the present; and the materialistic bent of an affluent society. In the state of Israel, all these factors operated with special force, both because it had to achieve in a very short time what other countries achieved over a much more extended period, and also because the meaning of these achievements from the Israeli citizens’ perspective was adaptation to economic, scientific, technological, political, and social modes of creativity that had no roots in Jewish culture but were imported entirely 46 eliezer schweid from outside. Moreover, the Jewish people’s aspiration to normalization through Zionism emphasized the very existence of the State and actual- izing the possibilities that it embodied as a supreme goal. Zionism placed great reliance on the political framework, but it sought to invest it with a much greater responsibility than a political framework can bear. The second factor that we should point out arises from the formation of Israeli society as an immigration-absorbing society. The process of absorption, by its nature, creates oppositions; how much greater, then, were these oppositions in the case of immigration from such remote and diverse centers, where in some cases assimilation in the surrounding cultures had practically eviscerated the immigrants of any remnant of Jewish content. To summarize: in Israel, many opposing cultural influences encountered each other, cultural influences in which the Jewish legacy, whether in its religious or its cultural sense, was quite weak. The two above-mentioned factors are external factors, which confronted cultural Judaism—as the bearer of the educational task of uniting the Jewish people—with an almost insurmountable challenge. The fact that religious Judaism chose a stance of defensive segregation, not only from the assimilating Jewish public, but also from the positive cultural creative forces in the society—from the ethos, the literature, the history, and at times even from the language—piled one difficulty upon another. But there was also an internal factor that was elucidated in the previous analysis: the refusal to be obligated by any value that was presented as absolute or any fixed norm. We should not go so far as to say that such a conception makes transmission altogether impossible. A society that was built by a process of slow, continuous development could perhaps have succeeded in transmitting its legacy even without an obligation to clearly defined norms. The need for tradition and love of tradition would have been enough to guarantee continuity. But the social and cultural existence that was created in Israel was disrupted by contradictory influences from diverse sources before it had a chance to stabilize. In such a situation, continuity could hardly be achieved without the support of obligatory norms. But such norms had not been consolidated, and the reason for this lack was the ambivalent relation of the defining founders of cultural Judaism vis-à-vis their heritage and the fact that the negative aspect of this relation focused precisely on their rebellion against the emphatically normative character of traditional Judaism. What, then, was the cause for this rebellion? The answer is twofold. From one side was the attraction of European culture, which the religious norm declared off-limits to Jewish society. From the other side was opposition judaism as a culture 47 to a religion that had been set in inflexible molds of dogmas and rituals, smothering the spontaneity and vitality of faith. The young Jew who had been educated in the tradition and whose heart was drawn to take part in the broad possibilities of life and creativity in European culture saw a prison in religion, and especially in its behavioral norms. In his eyes, the frozen normativity of the tradition was an essential expression of the essence of Exile. Not only assimilating Jews felt this, but also Jews who wanted to keep faith with Judaism. Defining Judaism as a culture thus expressed the desire to broaden the range of the existing Jewish legacy to encompass all the creative abundance of European culture. For this purpose it seemed necessary to break down the walls of religion. But it was hard not to see, even from the beginning, that all the characteristic components of Jewish culture—the forms of social organization, the connection to the Land of Israel, the Hebrew language, the canonical sources, the history, the social ethos, the customary observances of weekdays and holidays—all these were stamped with the seal of religion. To preserve them, it was necessary to obey explicit commandments, if only in part. The marvelously complex thought that developed on the issue of conceiving Judaism as a culture was caught on this contradiction in its theory and its guidance for practice, and it seems that it has not succeeded in overcoming this contradiction to the present day. It destroyed with one hand what it built up with the other. The chance of continuing the creation of Judaism as a holistic culture is conditioned, then, on a change of approach to religion and its commands. Only out of a positive relationship to religion as a realm of supreme values of the Jewish culture will it be possible to establish a sufficiently stable normative tradition that can preserve a vital connection to history, to the Jewish sources, to Eretz Yisrael, to the Hebrew language, and to forms of communal organization. Does this mean returning to the Orthodox conception, which negates the aspiration to create a full, broad, self-creating culture? Certainly not. The rebellion against “religion” in its narrow Ortho- dox sense was justified, not only from a cultural standpoint but even from a religious standpoint, for the Orthodox understanding salvaged the outer form of Jewish identification while sacrificing the Jewish soul. Whoever comes to appreciate Jewish religion—or better, the Torah of Israel—from a cultural perspective will discover that it comprises an entire culture, embodying a defined relation to the world and human society, with a rich complement of folkways and creativity. But doubtless a positive evaluation of the Jewish Torah entails clear obligation and not the attitude of tolerant indifference toward religion characterizing a certain portion of 48 eliezer schweid the Jewish public that calls itself “secular.” Obligation to what? First of all, obligation to the essential stance that comes to expression in the Jewish Torah—opposition to idolatry, even in its secular modern sense, and affirmation of a stance of ethical responsibility toward man himself, toward one’s neighbor, one’s society, and one’s natural environment. And second, obligation to explicit imperatives that express the principled stance toward action, coupled with an aspiration to broaden the extent of the realization of the values of Judaism into the full life regimen of a person of our times. Whoever takes on this obligation will be able not only to impart the Jewish legacy but also to add to and create his own annex to the building of Jewish culture. This conclusion has implications also for contemporary Judaism’s relation to modern European culture. It would seem that the debate over the very reception of influence has already been resolved. Modern European culture is de facto an inseparable part of the culture of most members of the Jewish people in our day. This fact is attested to not only by those Jews called “secular” but also those called “religious,” including the Ortho- dox. Nor does this fact present an absolute novelty. Jewish culture was formed through confrontation with several of the great world cultures; it absorbed influences and was not infrequently endangered with assimilation or inner division, but in the end imprinted its own stamp on what it absorbed. It is true that the influence of modern European culture was more extensive and far more threatening than the influences that were absorbed in the past. But there is no basis for the a priori conclusion that Jewish culture will not be able to withstand the major challenge of our day. If the Jewish people would adopt the necessary means and if it would invest in this spiritual-cultural enterprise the power of its will and creativity, it can cope. The question is not, then, whether one should accept outside influence or close oneself off from it but rather whether one should efface oneself before external influence and accept it uncriti- cally or accept the positive and reject the negative, as determined by one’s own criteria. A positive attitude toward the realm of the supreme values of Jewish culture necessitates a critique of modern culture, especially of the idolatrous social ethos that characterizes it. It is self-evident that framing these matters in this way calls for a change in understanding the prime motivation for preserving the uniqueness of Jewish culture. One should indeed not disparage the natural desire to preserve continuity or one’s group identity. Uniqueness is a value in its own right. But it stands to reason that this value cannot be maintained except in connection to other values to which the individual or the community judaism as a culture 49 is loyal for their own sake. The cultural Jew is thus obligated to examine whether his desire to preserve continuity or self-identity is inseparable from fidelity to the values that intrinsically characterize Jewish culture, or whether he is perhaps only a reincarnated echo of an original voice that has already been silenced. If the desire for self-identity stands for him without any connection to the values that intrinsically characterize Judaism, few indeed are the chances that he will be able to withstand the adverse factors mentioned previously. The power of a sovereign Jewish society and even the power of language and literature will be insufficient, and the process of assimilation will proceed to the core of the national political framework, just as it has proceeded outside it. But if the desire for self-identity is part and parcel of a positive relation to the distinctive values intrinsic to Jewish culture, and if it has expressed—even in the course of rebellion—fidelity to the fundamental values of the Jewish ethos, then the cultural Jew will be able to withstand these obstacles just as his ancestors withstood the sufferings of exile. We have tried in this essay to answer certain fundamental questions: What is Judaism from a cultural perspective? How has it been maintained to the present day? What are the difficulties that were raised in the course of its renewal? What has it achieved, and how has it failed? Analyzing the causes of failure has brought us to outline a direction for the necessary change, and what should be done. In the preceding chapters, we have cited some examples. But we must say that we are speaking of a spiritual- intellectual activity that cannot be micromanaged or solved by one-size- fits-all models. Every individual must forge his own path, though the achievements of talented and creative individuals can be an example for the many. The path is in any case a path of creativity that proceeds from independent individuals and from the society. The time has come for Jews who identify with Judaism as a culture to understand the significance of their definition and give it real content. The time has come for them to stop seeing their Judaism as a self-explanatory resource resulting from the maintenance of an independent political framework and a Hebrew- speaking society. The time has come for them to stop receiving the markers of their Judaism superficially from religious communal officials. The time has come for them to interpret their Judaism themselves as a worldview, as a creation, and as a lifestyle. Indeed, the task that is called for is vast, and when we contemplate its extent, we are liable to fall prey to despair before we even start. It is therefore proper to attend to the simple fact that a social-cultural renaissance is a process, not an event, and like every cultural-social process that matters, it pertains to every individual and 50 eliezer schweid begins with him or her directly. It is determined by one’s social relations, by the education that one gives to one’s children and students, by one’s creative efforts, by the responsibility that one assumes directly through one’s work and fulfillment of one’s public tasks. Therefore, even if what is required and hoped for is vast and imposing, it is always possible to begin realizing it, and beginning it is in and of itself an honorable cultural achievement, even if the larger desired achievement is not assured in advance. Faith Confronting the Experiences of Our Age*

Eliezer Schweid

Examining Jewish identity with respect to the “who” and the “what” is a topic that stands at the center of the ideological confrontation among the movements and currents within Israel. I began it from the point of view of the secular Jews who relate to the people, the nation, and the culture as the focuses of their identity. The question of faith and its perpetuation in tradition appears from their perspective as the last issue on the table, though I knew that for religious Jews it is the first issue. But it is the majority that determines the identity of a group, and the majority of the people in our time represent themselves as secular.1 It is obvious that the order of this discussion did not come only from the present-day public agenda but also from the path of my personal development. The education that I received at home, in school, and in the youth movement defined me from the outset as “free-thinking” and as “not religious,” even though I had an attitude of appreciation for my people’s faith as a source of its spiritual strength. Obviously, I believed in something—but not in God. I learned to believe in a human ideal (the ideal of humanity in its ethical-socialist version) and in the ideal of my people’s renewal (the ideal of practical social Zionism). More precisely, I internalized the full power of the faith that was implanted in me in the direction of the process of practical realization that I was living out: I believed in the existence of decisive forces within humanity, within my people, within myself, that were directed and actually leading toward a major positive goal: the redemption of humanity, the redemption of the people of Israel. These forces imbued my own individual life with direction, meaning, and creative fullness. I did not analyze the existential psychological source of my faith. It did not occur to me that it needed to be analyzed: I was living it as an enlightened aspiration filled with power and

* Originally published in Eliezer Schweid, Lihyot ben ha‘am ha-yehudi (Belonging to the Jewish People) (Tel Aviv: Eked, 1992), 45–88. 1 This was written in 1992. In 2012 the religious elements in the people have become more visible and vigorous in their political and cultural expression over time, so that if one were to characterize the identity of the Israeli public today, it might be precisely the split between the religious and the secular factions that deserves mention. (LL) 52 eliezer schweid vitality within a reality that attested to its realization. These ideals were not simple-minded. There was a clear vision, and there were forces for their realization whose presence could be felt in the pervading reality and the realm of action. With what did I need to struggle? Only with what was conceived as a problem within the reality with which I identified: the confrontation between the notion of positive identification with the people and the nation versus the kind of nationalistic identification that negated in practice the historical life values of the people. The question of faith in the religious sense and the question of the Jewish heritage as a religious tradition were already embodied in this confrontation, but not explicitly. It was the question of Jewish culture that floated up to the surface: What were the characteristics of its uniqueness, and what was its totality? The question of relation to faith in God and tradition originally came into view for me out of this context. My experience as one responsible for education and culture in my movement and in my kibbutz taught me early on that one could not find content, whether Jewish or humanistic, in the holidays, festivals, and other symbols that shaped the lifestyle of the people without resorting to the same values that appeared in the Jew- ish heritage as matters of religious faith. Without them, these holidays were bereft of emotional and festive content. Was it possible to remove the religious shell from them and to uncover underneath it secular values that had an identifiable reality, nourishing to a spiritual life, exalting, in the way that Aḥad Ha-Am had taught or in the way proclaimed by those who had sought to follow his path in practice in the labor settlements? My attempt, and afterward also the critical theoretical reflection to which I resorted, taught me that this cultural theory was without substance. Who- ever was in search of Sabbaths, holidays, and festivals that were more than simply rest, recreation, and entertainment, that is, whoever was seeking to be lifted up to the domain of sanctity that transcended the secular, would not find satisfaction in such secular content. Such persons were standing in the face of the dimensions of the wondrous and mysterious in reality. They were in amazement of that which transcended the passing hour. They were yearning, blessing, praying. Stripping off the “shell” of religion from the symbols, even if it revealed national, social, or ethical content underneath, would deprive the symbol of its true meaning and belie its symbolic nature. It would turn it into a lifeless theoretical abstraction. There would remain, at most, an esthetic experience. It would be an impoverishment, even if one were able to dredge out an alternate content of secular, this- worldly faith in the social historical forces that operated in humanity and in the people. Indeed, when one sought to symbolize them through a festive faith confronting the experiences of our age 53 gathering, outside the daily routine of secular deeds connected with practical fulfillment, they would stick out from the worldly, secular context and take on another, quasi-religious shell. Was this not a falsification of both the religious truth and the secular truth? Was this not “idolatry” from both these perspectives? I thus had to go back and struggle with the dilemma that seemed at first without any solution. How should one respond to the religious need of secular people? How could one ascribe a meaning of sanctity to secular content or a secular meaning to sacred content? This struggle grew in intensity on the public plane after the establishment of the State of Israel and on the personal plane, when I took on the responsibility of imparting my heritage to my children. As I mentioned these things in the first chapter,2 I will not dwell on them here but will point out the essential. It was not my view that the establishment of the State of Israel had brought the Zionist vision to full realization. Nor is that my view today. The infrastructure in terms of the people, the settlement, the economy, the society, and the culture is still insufficient for that. Zion- ism will be fully realized only when there is a sufficient infrastructure for the people to dwell in its land in all these respects. Nevertheless, it was clear that with the establishment of the State the horizons of realization had changed. The question of the image of the Jewish state and its centrality for the people, that is to say, the question of the culture that identifies and unites the people, had become the principal challenge that needed to direct action in such matters as the process of absorbing the waves of immigration, settling them, integrating them socially and politically, and helping them become rooted in the land, as well as educating the younger generation. Before the establishment of the State, the emphasis was on the physical building of the land of Israel as a voluntary personal-social project, and the notion of “personal fulfillment” was invested with a spiritual significance (though then, too, I felt that it was insufficient). After the establishment of the State, the voluntary personal meaning of fulfillment was reduced in the material arena. It became more technical than visionary, more institutional than voluntary. The meaning was sought, thus, directly in the fabric of cultural life itself and the question of the Jewish image of Israeli society, and its state was sharpened considerably and became a focus of contemporary debate. It brought along with it all the rest of the problems of fulfillment.

2 “A Personal View,” first chapter of Lihyot ben ha-am ha-yehudi, not included in the current volume. (LL) 54 eliezer schweid

If we resort to political terms, the intent is to say that the problem of establishing the relations between the religious and the secular, which together shape the socio-cultural being of the people, rose to the top of the public agenda. But on a deeper level, transcending political terminology, the problem was the relating of religious Jews to their religiosity in light of their being connected to the secular Jewish social reality surrounding them, and the relating of secular Jews to their secularity in light of their being connected to the religious society that existed in their midst; in other words, the relating of religious Jews to the values of secular Jews, and the relating of secular Jews to the values of religious Jews. Did they still possess a common language that expressed the living values of a single people? Or perhaps did they speak in two languages that could not be translated into one another because they conveyed foreign or contradictory values? So much for the public arena. As for the personal arena, I said what needed to be said in the first chapter. I wanted to impart to my children the historical memory of the people and the legacy of its sources. I wanted this legacy to be knowledge rooted in a way of life and a way of life rooted in knowledge. I thus had to struggle together with my children with the expressions, dilemmas, and difficulties of a faith-based outlook and with the gestures, symbols, and practices of a traditional way of life. How does one respond to them? How does one express through them a living feeling and thought? I had to enter deeply into understanding the sources, not only from a scientific-historical perspective, but from a personal existential standpoint. I had to enter deeply into understanding the symbols, the prayers, and the blessings from the same personal existential perspective, and so I had no other recourse than to look deeply into myself: into emotions that originated in my direct life experience as well as those whose source was in the legacy that I had received and internalized. I was able, of course, to rely on my previous life experience in dealing with the most difficult and the broadest theoretical-emotional question— the question of faith. I had believed in ideal forces that operated in the history of humanity and of my people. I had to ask: From what was this faith derived? On what was it based? I believed in the great spiritual and ethical power embodied in my people. The faith that was expressed in a particular way of life and that drew its strength from it—this is what had sustained it on its road of suffering. I had to ask: Was not my faith in the spiritual strength of my people’s faith in God the hidden beginning of that faith itself—the faith in the God of the world, the God of humanity, who was revealed in a particular form to His people and through His people? faith confronting the experiences of our age 55

At this stage of my dilemma, I was assisted by the teaching of Aaron David Gordon on the source of faith in the existential experience of man in the world. I will return to it later. But I was helped in the conceptual development of my views by the point of origin that Martin Buber suggested in his books on the Bible. The distinction that he proposed between faith as a volitional-emotional psychological stance that is, a life-tendency and holistic form of relating to existence, and faith as holding in trust certain views concerning existence and its mode of operation (between “faith in” and “faith that”) opened a door for me. It enabled me to identify the element of faith in my world-concept and to redefine it. It also enabled me to re-anchor my faith in the Jewish sources (particularly the Bible) and to develop my thought while examining my internal experience side by side with the testimony of the literary sources. The importance of Buber’s distinction between “faith in” and “faith that” was that it revealed to me the possibility of examining the phenomenon of faith itself, of whatever sort, whether faith in God or faith in nature or faith in mankind, inasmuch as it was “faith in” something, to clarify its existential origin as an inner response that found its a priori source in the self that turned to X without cutting it off from its necessary connection to a certain one of these truths (God, nature, mankind), held to be objective; in other words, as something to which the believer had recourse to knowledge of a certain sort. This distinction enabled me, thus, first of all to identify myself as a believing person, to examine my faith “in itself” as an existential response, to discover its origins, and to come back and examine after the fact the connection between this faith and the objective kind of knowledge on which it relied and the methods of verification proper to such knowledge. Thus I was able to enter into the circle of faith-experience that I had previously contemplated as an outsider—with great appreciation, perhaps even longing—but from a distance that had appeared unbridgeable. For one can only understand faith if one has faith oneself. As an inner existential response, faith is only susceptible of objective observation from within. One needs to believe in order to believe . . . What, then, is “faith in X” as a human existential response? My answer was that faith is a person’s attitude toward the fact of his existence having been decreed (“you live, willy-nilly”) as a happening that carries within it an absolute promise of “good” whose source is not the person himself but a transcendent hidden entity, the source that decreed his or her existence, and by virtue of that fact decreed an obligation, or absolute moral responsibility, experienced by the person toward whatever or whomever he conceives as the source that decrees his or her existence and promises 56 eliezer schweid that person meaning and goodness. Thus there is an absolute promise of “good” found in life itself and an absolute ethical obligation, as well as a reciprocal relation between the two. The promise generates obligation, but it is itself subject to the test of its fulfillment in the objective reality in which the person lives and acts. At the same time, recognizing the obligation expressed in the effort to realize it is the condition for fulfilling the promise, in the sense that the good in life will become manifest when the ethical obligation to life is realized in action. To believe thus means to trust that if a person fulfills the moral obligation that is imposed on her as a person, the promise of good that is embodied in her existence as a person will be realized: the affirmation of human life itself and the affirmation of the value or meaning for that person herself and for the environment within which she lives. A double tension is embodied a priori in faith conceived in this way. It has a naïve origin in some knowledge that is conceived from the outset as wholly certain, prior to any examination. But the faith that relies on this knowledge is not naïve. On the contrary, it requires continual critical testing, both in one’s observation of oneself, one’s emotions, thoughts, aspirations, and deeds (is one worthy?), and in one’s observation of one’s fate and the fate of one’s group in the objective reality that surrounds one, in the world and in culture, in nature and history (are they getting the good that they deserve?). This is one side of the coin. On the other side, faith carries within itself a clear knowledge, implanted in us from the outset, that there is a gap, or perhaps there must be a gap, between the promise that a person expects to be fulfilled because one is deserving of it and what happens in actuality. One can even put it this way: Faith itself, insofar as it is faith, is already an effort to bridge the gap—sensed in the direct experience of life in nature and society that is filled with pain and suffering—between the innate promise of life and its imperfect fulfillment. To “have faith in” means to trust in the fulfillment of the promise, not to know that it will be realized on the basis of some proven scientific regularity or other kind of proven necessity. The one who has faith thus exercises the transcending power of one’s faith to bridge this gap, reaching out in two directions: toward the supreme reality on whose promise one relies, in the moral sense (that being ought to fulfill the promise, as opposed to must fulfill it in a causal or fateful sense); and toward the hoped-for future, in which what was unfulfilled in the past and the present should be fulfilled. Indeed, this double tension sustains also a characteristic tension between the believer’s knowledge and his feelings of faith. His feelings of faith confronting the experiences of our age 57 faith are invested with an absolute value, to the point that he tends to see in faith itself the fulfillment of the promise embodied in it: it is for him the true good, the thing for which it is right to live, even if in his fated life a deep abyss should open up between his expectations and his suffering. The believer tends to stand firm in his or her faith and become hardened in it even in the face of the most difficult trials. On the contrary, he will try to testify to his faith through his deeds to the point of martyrdom and will then find in these deeds, or in the faith to which he testifies through these deeds, true confirmation of the promise, or at least the absolute guarantee that it will still be fulfilled, if not in the life of this world as it now exists, then in another life beyond this one. In this way, faith can itself be a means for overcoming the gap between its expectations and their fulfillment, and it can sometimes culminate in denial of reality. On the other hand, the believer demands objective confirmation of the promise embodied in her faith. Indeed, her faith relates to objective truth, and the expectation of fulfillment is germane to it. A paradoxical tension thus characterizes the thinking of the believing person: the tension between absolute certainty, prior to any external experience, relying on the source of faith and on the future, versus the expectation that this certainty will indeed be borne out by fulfillment in actuality. In other words, faith as an inner subjective response is liable to tend toward blindness of reality, but at the same time it demands a critical awareness of reality as it really is objectively. Faith is thus responsibility and trust from the outset, but it is also a demand for substantive fulfillment of its expectations, or at least a convincing explanation why the justified expectation has not yet been fulfilled. After this characterization of faith as a response and idea, the questions for us to raise are what is its source, and what keeps it alive? More particularly, from where derives that prior naïve knowledge on which it relies? Certainly, when one is speaking of such a complex existential phenomenon, the origin is also composite. Not all human beings believe, even though faith has a strong foothold in a person’s psyche, in one’s consciousness of self, and in one’s internal soul-awareness. Faith is thus a choice. It is voluntary. It comprises a choice between two alternative attitudes to human life. As such, it concretizes or realizes, in a primal way, the inner freedom that exists in a person’s soul. A person can decide to believe in what he or she believes; he can also refrain from deciding or decide not to believe. But even if this decision is spontaneous, it is not arbitrary. The very will that a person finds inside himself is testimony to a given spiritual reality, prior to choice, in which will and choice are rooted. The 58 eliezer schweid

decision thus demands justification both in terms of value (that it is good and proper) and in terms of fact (that it is capable of realization) on the plane of objective experience. The external experience of life determines these. In other words, we are brought back to the distinction with which we began: “faith in” relies on a kind of “faith that.” A train of thought that includes comprehensive reflection on the reality in which a person is immersed—on the framework of relations in it, its beginnings and origin, its end and purpose—comprises a substantive dimension of faith. We must thus examine the foundation of such thinking; in other words, the form of its verification in its different kinds. The answer is perhaps simpler for believers whose faith-grounding knowledge in reality relates to the assumption that there is a purposive inner law in nature, or the assumption that human beings have a moral nature, or the assumption that human society and culture guarantee moral progress. Here we point to the domain of universal experience, an experience that one may assume is common to all persons and that is susceptible to direct expression among people. Assertions rooted in such experience can, at least apparently, be verified or falsified through scientific procedures. But what is the basis of the belief that there is a God or that this God is the source of those tendencies or desires that the believer attributes to Him? Can we say of such a belief that it is an objective hypothesis susceptible of critical scientific examination? In order to answer properly, we must go back and refine the previous analysis. The assertions that grounded “faith in” on universal experiences pertaining to relations between humanity and nature, between person and person, and between the person and society and culture can be verified or falsified by scientific procedures—at least apparently. Why “apparently”? Because more precise reflection will reveal to us that the same reality, when it is examined in connection to the question of faith in its ethical and teleological meaning, even though carried out with objective procedures, has a central subjective or intersubjective component. Faith or the absence of faith contribute an essential dimension to the way in which we apprehend the reality that confronts us as inquirers. In other words, our subjective decisions are a part of the objective reality that we are examining, and the examination itself takes place out of a standpoint of involvement in the decisions that created the intersubjective reality under examination. That said, we cannot entirely negate the claim that there are objective parameters susceptible of scientific verification according to which we can examine whether the expectations of the believer concerning the nature of the world, human nature, or the nature of society are faith confronting the experiences of our age 59 confirmed in actuality. But the final decision remains subjective. There will be a substantive, philosophically legitimate difference between the conclusion of a scientific observer who holds onto his faith despite his suffering and the conclusion of another scientist who did not believe from the outset or who lost his faith in the face of experiences that were too much for him to tolerate. It follows that, even after proper research, we are still speaking of faith as a form of subjective relating to experience within a surrounding reality of which faith is one of the factors consti- tuting it and shaping the way it is experienced. It is therefore correct to speak of such assertions as a kind of “faith that” rather than as knowledge in the purely objective sense used in the natural sciences or even in the social sciences, all the more so when we are speaking of “faith that” there is a God who is the Master of the world, its Guide, Commander, Judge, and Recompenser. Such a faith is still not exempt from objective empirical confirmation of its assumptions concerning the characteristics of the human being as a creature with a psyche and the mode of his relations to nature, or concerning the characteristics of human society, culture, and history. But we must remember again that faith is one of the essential factors that shape and define the conditions of reality the believing person examines with his research tools. It follows that the thinking part of faith (we saw above that it is an inseparable part of faith itself) includes objective examination of subjective experience, as well as subjective examination of objective experience. We can now go back and put forth the question: What is the source from which we verify the basis of knowledge in the thought component of faith-in-God? From where does the believer’s conviction that God exists come, and how is it to be verified? My answer, based on what I learned in the thought of Aaron David Gordon, is that it starts with the human experience of life.3 This is the foundation of the faith that “God” (in the sense that biblically based monotheism attributes to this name) exists. Franz Rosenzweig opens his book The Star of Redemption with this passage, which is very characteristic of a whole current in existential thought:

3 Experience of life: A. D. Gordon coined the modern Hebrew word ḥavvaya (derived from ḥayyim—“life”) to denote this life-experience, as a distinct epistemological kind of knowledge distinct from objective, scientific knowledge, thus anticipating Buber’s distinction between “I-Thou” knowledge and “I-It” knowledge. Eventually, in modern Hebrew, the word ḥavvaya was broadened—and somewhat deflated—to denote the more ordinary, everyday variety of experience. (LL) 60 eliezer schweid

From death, it is from the fear of death that all cognition of the All begins. Philosophy has the audacity to cast off the fear of the earthly, to remove from death its poisonous sting, from Hades his pestilential breath. All that is mortal lives in this fear of death; every new birth multiplies the fear for a new reason, for it multiplies that which is mortal. The womb of the inexhaustible earth ceaselessly gives birth to what is new, and each one is subject to death; each newly born waits with fear and trembling for the day of its passage into the dark. But philosophy refutes these earthly fears. It breaks free above the grave that opens up under our feet before each step. It abandons the body to the power of the abyss, but above it the free soul floats off in the wind. That the fear of death knows nothing of such a separation in body and soul, that it yells, I, I, I and wants to hear nothing about a deflection of the fear onto a mere “body”—matters little to philosophy. That man may crawl like a worm into the folds of the naked earth before the whizzing projectiles of blind, pitiless death, or that there he may feel as violently inevitable that which he never feels otherwise; his I would be only an It if it were to die; and he may cry out his I with every cry still in his throat against the Pitiless One by whom he is threatened with such an unimaginable annihilation.4 Rosenzweig indeed seeks in these words to attack the pretension of philosophy in order to establish in its place what he calls “believing knowledge.” But it appears that his believing knowledge is also rooted from the outset in his grappling with the fear of death until he succeeds in arriving, by the end of his book, at the affirmation of the experience of life. Confronting this path, which for Rosenzweig was also the way of a philosopher, the believer’s worldview was developed with the same facticity as a spiritual rebirth—the repeated breakthrough of the spirit’s life within the terrestrial body—in which Rosenzweig grounds from the outset only the source of the infinite reiteration of death’s confirmation. The believer’s outlook does not ignore—it cannot ignore—the fear of death. This is the first and ultimate gap between the believer’s expectations and experienced reality that he must bridge through his faith. But the beginning consists not in standing before death but precisely in standing before life, which is continually reborn and renewed, not only insofar as “the womb of the inexhaustible earth ceaselessly gives birth to what is new,” but also insofar as the life-birth of every individual is repeated in every moment of life. This consciousness is the foundation. The simplest and profoundest expression of the conception of the self-renewing beginning of faith is found in the Jewish prayer book. These are the words that the prayer puts

4 Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, trans. Barbara E. Galli (Madison: Univer- sity of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 9. faith confronting the experiences of our age 61 in the mouth of every Jew when he arises to give thanks to his Creator for the life that was renewed in him at daybreak: “I thank You, living and eternal God, that You have restored my soul-breath in mercy—great is Your faithfulness.” Later on, after the washing of the hands and its accom- panying blessing, two benedictions complement one another. The first is for renewal of the body: Blessed are You, Lord our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who fashioned the human being in wisdom and created in him/her numerous orifices and arteries. It is known and revealed before Your throne of glory that if one of these should be improperly opened, or another improperly sealed, a person would be unable to survive and stand before You. Blessed are You, Lord, Healer of all flesh who works wonders. The other is for renewal of the soul-breath: O my God, the soul-breath5 that You have invested in me is pure. You created it, You fashioned it, You breathed it into me, You preserve it within me, and You will at some future time take it from me and restore it to me in future time to come. As long as the soul-breath is within me, I give thanks to You, Lord my God and God of my ancestors, Master of all works, Lord of all souls. Blessed are You, Lord, Who restores souls to dead bodies. These are indeed the words in which the primal knowledge from which faith breaks forth is renewed. One could say: God’s faithfulness (the fact that God is faithful to the person who is God’s creature, and therefore the person-creature can trust in Him) is what the person experiences when his life is renewed with daybreak (“great is Your faithfulness”), and it is the source of the strength of faith for the person who relates to his life in this way, by affirming that God exists. But in order to consider the fullness of the complex thinking embodied in these simple words, we must pay attention to their syntax and meaning. We must first note that human existence (we are speaking only of that, for only of it can one speak in this

5 Soul-breath: Hebrew neshamah (“soul”; linshom, to breathe). This word has persisted from biblical through rabbinic, medieval, and modern times—surviving many changes of outlook—and so (not surprisingly) can be understood within either a monistic or dual- istic cosmological framework of assumptions. Understood monistically, it is simply the manifestation of life that is observed in respiration and experienced as conscious awareness. Understood dualistically, it is the life-principle that can survive death and become manifest as pure spirit. Schweid purposely frames the discussion here to allow either interpretation. Elsewhere, in his discussion of Spinoza and Krochmal in intellectual-historical contexts, he seems to favor the monistic view, while steering clear of what Daniel Dennett calls “greedy reductionism.” Body and soul may be two sides of the same coin, but one must never forget that the coin has two sides and not only one. (LL) 62 eliezer schweid way) is conceived from within (the worshipper speaks as an isolated individual, saying “I” and “in me”) as that of a soul within a body. Only as an ensouled body or an embodied soul can a person say (or conceive himself as) “I.” The soul and the body are distinct from each other in the speaker’s self-awareness. The body is material, and the soul is spiritual. The body is possessed of physical functions, and the soul feels, wills, knows the truth, and thinks. But they are not separate as long as the “I” knows himself as this “I,” capable of relating to himself. Perhaps one could formulate it as follows: the “I” is manifest to the soul through its body and to the body through its soul. Thus whoever utters his prayer as “I” is a body with a soul or a soul with a body. In any case, the main point is that the soul is the life-force connected with a body and connecting it to itself but is not identical with it. For the body is manifest to the soul and the soul to the body. This manifestation singles out the human being as a creature who has a special relation to (according to Genesis, even being in the image of) God. This relation deserves emphasis in our discussion because man’s having a “soul” is the unique notion that is the basis of faith in God. To deny it is to deny faith in its biblical, monotheistic sense altogether. If so, the notion that man knows his essence as a spiritual being transcending the body’s materiality, even though it has no life (not even a soul-existence) without the body, is the basis of faith in the existence and faithfulness of God. It is also a notion that can be verified only through the clarity of subjective introspection. From the standpoint of objective science, it would seem that such introspection should be susceptible of being evaluated by various findings that could either strengthen it or weaken it without arriving at unequivocal proof or refutation. But for one who has had this insight, it is absolutely certain. Second, the prayer emphasizes the recognition that the body was created in wisdom and that the soul was given to man as an expression of love and kindness. The body attests to the wondrous wisdom of its composition, which makes possible the phenomenon of organic life, whereas the soul attests to the wonder of its very existence, to its purity and goodness, to God. The wisdom of the creation of physical nature is God’s wisdom. The purity and goodness of the soul are God’s purity and goodness. These are two evidences that a person finds through contemplating him- or herself. Common to them again is a subjective basic insight—viewed as absolutely certain by the person who has it—that man cannot be the author of his own existence, either physically or spiritually. Moreover, faith confronting the experiences of our age 63

Nature (the “earth,” in Rosenzweig’s language) cannot be considered as the source that gives birth to us, except only in the physical sense, not the spiritual sense. The human being, as this particular unique “I,” is born at a particular moment after having not been, and afterward s/he is reborn, coming into existence afresh every morning, every day, every moment, a being emerging from the darkness of nothingness that envelops the self from both ends, before and after. This insight thus attests to the fact that, in light of the wonder of one’s being an ensouled body and an embodied soul, there must be a source transcending the self—a wondrous, hidden being who creates the body and places the soul within it. We emphasize again that this is not a “proof” in the logical, deduc- tive sense to which the classic philosophers alluded when they sought to prove God’s existence. But this is indeed a proof in the immediate, existential sense: When a person is filled with the insight that there is no adequate explanation for one’s existence as a subject (possessed of a soul, aware of its unique selfhood) within oneself, but only transcending oneself, one then knows with absolute subjective clarity, with the force of actual experience, living contact of spirit with spirit, that there is a God Who by His will and goodness created one’s body and endowed it with soul. Only a divine being could be the source, and the person “knows” this in the biblical sense of knowing from living contact, felt by the person in his/her body and soul. As a third central notion expressed in the prayers we may emphasize what is in fact assumed in the two previous: Prayer expresses a positive subjective attitude to the experience of life, comprising bodily and spiritual existence. A human being accepts his/her existence, as a soul in its designated body, as a marvelous gift, as the supreme good from his perspective and his Creator’s. This good becomes after the fact the criterion by which one will distinguish good from evil in the whole hierarchy of relations that one will fashion with oneself and with one’s environment. One thus accepts the gift of life from one’s Creator with a gesture of thanks. One sees in it a manifestation of God’s faithfulness to His creatures, especially to humankind as a whole and to each human being individually. One relies on this faithfulness as the basis of one’s faith in God, as well as of one’s responsibility to God. The complete circle of “faith in” thus rises before our eyes when it is supported by the existential certainty of God’s existence by virtue of the inner renewal of human life. Finally, we round out our reflections on the origin-point of faith in human life experience as it comes to expression through prayer with the 64 eliezer schweid following assertion: A person’s addressing God in prayer through the personal address “You” is also based on one’s recognizing oneself, in one’s composite of body and soul, as a divine creation and gift. From recognizing God as the one who creates the body and endows the soul, from the insight that the soul is what distinguishes the human being and brings each person closest to his or her Creator, the person can permit herself to speak to the wondrous God, the Creator, whose essence and nature are concealed from the human subject, as to a personal being. Only thus can a person speak to God and feel she must speak to Him thus. One must thank God for the kindness of having created oneself. This is the only image through which one can grasp God’s nature within the limits of one’s thought and intuit God within the limits of one’s feelings. This is the only way in which one can assign cognitive and emotional significance to the act of turning, as a human being, to God. After recognizing our personal life experience and its givenness from birth as a ground for our faith that God exists, our faith in Him, and our turning to Him in personal colloquy, there are other sources that rely on this faith and extend it: God’s presence as creator of the world, and God’s presence as the source of the moral imperative that gives meaning, goal, and direction to human activity in society and culture. God’s presence in the first sense is a broadening of one’s awareness of one’s body as a created entity. A person learns to reflect on the natural world around him in the same way that he reflects on himself, not only as a scientist deciphering its secrets, but also as one seeking in nature and its order something directed to him and expressing the meaning of his existence, as a creature who is situated within nature yet transcends it. When a person confronts nature in this way he feels that nature expresses through its unity a purposive, creative will that is the foundation of one’s own existence; a will that addresses nature and through it, mankind, confirming one’s life as a value, as good; a will that prefers being to nonbeing, life to nothingness, and strives for unity and completion. God’s presence in the second sense is an extension of one’s knowing one’s soul as a creation of God. This is the knowledge that enables one to fashion a sphere of human life within and above nature. It introduces individuals to society, to the human world, in which they can realize their spiritual destinies as human beings. The theological concepts of “creation” and “revelation” were crystallized, it seems, from these two extrapolations, whose source was in primal bodily-spiritual life experience. Through nature, God is present to man as creator of the physical world—the source of the power of existence that faith confronting the experiences of our age 65 overcomes nothingness and nonexistence, the source of order that overcomes chaos, the source of purposive, beneficent wisdom and the sublime beauty of the world’s landscape. Through people’s cooperation in their striving to know truth and to do good, that is, to fulfill the commandment given to them to be faithful to their spiritual source and destiny, God is revealed in utterance, instructing and commanding. Thus God is revealed as the source of Torah (= Instruction). In other words, the insight that God is the creator of the human being, body and soul, opens the way to knowing the whole world and human society out of a knowledge rooted in faith and undergirding it. God is the creator of the world and the fashioner of the soul, imbuing it with His holy spirit. It seems that the faith-consciousness that the divine holy spirit rests on the human soul, having been emanated from a higher source, is the source of prophecy—the human being’s miraculous power to hear the voice of God speaking to him from the hidden recesses of his soul in order to direct him in his destined path. Thus prophecy becomes the deepest, most stable and abiding discovery, unconditioned by one’s external life circumstances, of the love that is the soul-connection between the believer and God. When that love is revealed in human society, it reflects the love of God for humanity in the love of each human being for the fellow-human who is like him/her. Certainly, if the Torah is the wisdom born of the discourse and deeds of believers who heard the voice of God speaking to them and obeyed Him, then it is not a truth revealed once and for all through a single individual or even several individuals, but it is a cumulative work in progress, learned and transmitted, renewed and added to, when the enlightening and interpretive encounter took place between, on the one hand, what was learned in the circles of discourse of believers from generation to generation and, on the other, the truth that the believer would find and the commandment that one heard in the recesses of one’s soul. These insights, too, which lay the foundation for monotheism as a doctrine and a religion—that is to say, as a defined worldview (but continually reinterpreted as man’s knowledge of the world expands) and as a formulated way of life (but continually evolving along with individual and social life as they proceed historically)—find simple yet profound expression in the Jewish prayers. I refer here to the first two benedictions recited before the Shema. But first we should take a look at Psalm 19, which combines these two components of faith in parallel, as complementary foundations of the believer’s conception of life: 66 eliezer schweid

The heavens declare the glory of God, The sky proclaims His handiwork. Day to day makes utterance, Night to night speaks out. There is no utterance, there are no words— Their voice is not heard. Yet their beams go forth throughout the earth, Their message to the end of the world. He placed in them a tent for the sun, Who is like a groom coming forth from the chamber, Like a hero, eager to run his course. His rising-place is at one end of heaven, And his circuit reaches the other; Nothing escapes his heat. Here nature is described as the established order that exists to provide a home for humanity, as a direct expression, without utterance or words, of God’s presence. Yet note that this occurs not within nature itself but through its mediation. The contemplating believer hears the silent utterance addressed to him and intuits a guiding presence, of which the sun is but a symbol. Now comes the complementary, parallel stanza, attesting to God’s being present to the human soul: The Torah of the Lord is perfect, renewing life; The decrees of the Lord are enduring, making the simple wise. The precepts of the Lord are just, rejoicing the heart; The instruction of the Lord is lucid, making the eyes light up. The fear of the Lord is pure, abiding forever; The judgments of the Lord are true, righteous altogether. The parallel between the second half of the psalm and the first is clear and obvious. This parallel implies a relation of mutual reference between the entities they describe. The light-giving sun is the symbol of Torah within the external world, the world of creation that attests to its creator, whereas the life-renewing Torah, which confers wisdom and makes the eyes light up, symbolizes the sun in the inner world, the world of the soul. But that which is uttered silently in the external world turns into the sound of words, directing and guiding, heard in the recesses of the human soul and directing the individual toward human society. We return to the prayer book. The first benediction before the morning recitation of the Shema directs the worshipper’s attention to the physical experience of creation that is being renewed around oneself, visible to the faith confronting the experiences of our age 67 eye, as evidence of God’s direct presence. (Again—God’s presence is not within nature but is mediated through it.) God is present to the person who prepares oneself for the core prayer to follow as “the One Who fashions light and creates darkness, Who makes peace and creates All—Who gives light in mercy to the earth and those who dwell on it, and in His goodness renews every day continually the work of creation.” God is the Source of kindness who evokes both awe and amazement. The second benediction before the Shema directs the worshipper to the voice that is renewed in one’s interiority. God is present in the gesture of life that is expressed by restoring the soul-breath in one’s nostrils. The person feels it in the depths of his or her heart: With abounding love have You loved us, Lord our God; boundless compassion have You showered on us. Our Father and Sovereign, for the sake of our ancestors who trusted in You and whom You taught the laws of life, be gracious to us as well, and instruct us. Compassionate Father, All-Merciful, care for us. Inspire our hearts to understand and discern; to hear, study, and teach; to observe, fulfill, and perform with love all the teachings of Your Torah. Enlighten our eyes with Your Torah; attach our hearts to Your mitzvot; unify our hearts to love and revere Your name. Two words are articulated again and again in this benediction: “love” and “heart.” The love from God comes to expression in the depths of the person’s heart and incites him to return the love. We should note that the difference between the first and second benediction is not exhausted by the difference between an external and internal presence, or by the difference between a silent address and an intimate internal utterance. The third substantive difference is that the presence of God in nature is perceived by each person as an individual created within the totality of nature’s creatures, whereas God’s presence within the individual’s soul situates him within his people. God’s love is not to the individual alone but to the individual within his or her people. God’s word or Torah is similarly addressed not just to the individual but to the individual within the context of one’s people. It seems that God’s love encompasses each individual in the midst of his or her people and directs them to find their place in that people. For only in relation to the members of one’s people will one find the feeling of love that awakens within oneself the appropriate practical response that one owes to God. Articulating the difference between the first source and the second source brings us to the third source by which we recognize God’s presence to the person—this time, directly within his people. Recognizing God as loving the human partner, as addressing him and guiding his way, 68 eliezer schweid awakens the expectation that God’s love will indeed advance the shape of the person’s existence and that of his society and nation, in the totality of their life course. The marvelous order that God established in creation, the moral order toward which God directs individuals within their society through God’s Torah—this order must come to realization in the totality of everyone’s deeds. The entire society—especially society!—must become a proper home for humanity. Faith is therefore laden with the expectation that God will be present to each person who is faithful to Him and who fulfills God’s imperatives through deeds whose objective is to establish among human beings an order in keeping with Torah—that God will be humankind’s Redeemer and Savior in the struggles of their social existence. Is there testimony that upholds the faith in God’s presence as the leader of human beings (first and foremost, the people of Israel) in their history? Scripture and the prayers point to such a source, which is evidence of God’s presence in historical events. It is the memory of past events that demonstrate God’s direct guidance, with the same clarity that God’s presence is manifest in nature surrounding the person and in the voice heard within the recesses of one’s soul. The prayer book mentions such a source, parallel to and in continuation of the two prior sources, in the third benediction after the Shema just before the core prayer of the Amidah. The special theme of this third benediction emphasizes turning to God as redeemer of the individual and the people: True it is that You are the Lord our God and God of our ancestors, our Sov- ereign and Sovereign of our ancestors, our Redeemer and Redeemer of our ancestors, our Maker, the Rock of our Salvation. Thus this benediction is preoccupied, from start to finish, with absolutely substantiating the belief that God is the Redeemer through the preserved memory of the foundational event for which it presents convincing evidence: “From Egypt You redeemed us, Lord our God, and from the house of bondage You freed us.” On this past event, with its evident signs and miracles, the event that established the people and gave direction to its history, the worshipper grounds his faith in the redemption that still awaits: Rock of Israel, arise to the aid of Israel, and free Judah and Israel as You have promised. Our Redeemer, Lord of Hosts is His Name, the Holy One of Israel. Blessed are You, Lord, Redeemer of Israel. It is a striking fact that the faith regarding the future is based here on the absolute certainty of the foundational event that already actually occurred faith confronting the experiences of our age 69 in the past. God has already redeemed Israel once. His presence in the people’s history is regarded as an established fact. But one should add that, according to the tenor of the prayer, the people’s survival in the present despite all its tribulations attests to that presence in the present as well.

We return now to the assertion that faith bridges the perceived gap between hope, even the moral demand based on knowing God as Cre- ator and Guide, and the reality that the believer experiences in actuality. Surely if there had been no basis in experience for faith, it would not have established a foothold to begin with. However, a stance that was based from the outset on inner experience (in the person’s soul) and outer experience (in the surrounding world) is tested in turn on such experiences. The affirmative experience of the renewal of life stands opposite the fear of death. The experience of the body—as house of the soul and of nature—as home of the person’s existence and creativity, stands in opposition to the experience of bodily pain, of the suffering of illness, decline, and cessation, and of the suffering of violation and the war of all against all in nature. The memories of the events of redemption and salvation in the people’s history stand opposite events of inner disintegration and external wars, destruction, devastation, and persecution bound up with the encounter with malicious wickedness and demonic evil, evil for evil’s sake. Moreover, the events of redemption and salvation are mostly memories of the ever-receding past, whereas most moments of the present are moments of disappointed hope. As we said above, faith, even if based on the naïveté of subjective experience, cannot maintain itself in a state of naïveté, much less blindness. It struggles with a reality whose effect is to disillusion and undermine it up to a certain threshold of tolerance (which varies from individual to individual and from generation to generation). It is thus liable to break when it exceeds this threshold. It therefore has resort to another source that can strengthen and maintain it from within: believing thought,6 which is an inseparable part of faith itself. Its task is

6 Believing thought: maḥshavat ha-emunah (literally, “the thinking of faith”). Sch- weid seems to echo, in this key term, Franz Rosenzweig’s gläubiges Wissen (“believing knowledge”), which Yehoyada Amir has taken as the title of his systematic examination of Rosenzweig’s thought: Da’at ma’aminah (Reason Out of Faith). See the section “Believ- ing Science” in Nahum N. Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig—His Life and Thought (New York: Schocken, 1961), 209–11. Schweid is faithful to Rosenzweig’s insight in this passage, that what the believing person “knows” he knows on the basis of his direct experience of the (objective) external world—an experience which proceeds, however, on the basis of his (subjective) faith-assumptions, and interprets reality in their light. (LL) 70 eliezer schweid to shore up faith’s own ability to cope with the gap by means of an ever deeper contemplation of human nature itself, understanding the ways of God as much as a human being is able to comprehend them, the nature of the world, the nature of society and culture, and the inner logic of the historical process. Through such in-depth investigations the believer strives to understand the causes and meanings of suffering and evil in the world that God created and thus to deepen the sense of God’s presence and loving closeness while discovering in the depths of one’s afflictions and suffering some consoling truth that may strengthen him in his faith despite his afflictions. As we are speaking of a way of thinking that plumbs the depths of the nature of reality known to mankind, there will arise necessarily an additional problem with its own challenge, namely, how to grapple with modes of thinking that run counter to faith, whether through the force of other (pagan) religious faiths or from the force of scientific and philosophical thinking that is irreligious by its nature and liable to conflict with and refute the received interpretation of the experiences on which faith was based to begin with. As one who grapples with the problem of the perpetuation of faith in our day, I do not see the need to deal with questions raised against the methodological background of scientific thought and philosophical rationalism. I shall indeed return to this topic later, but in direct connection to the question of justifying God’s ways in the face of the appearance of demonic evil in history, which in my view is the focus of the embattled struggle of the believing person in our generation. I accept the stipulation that a rational scientific methodology is necessary to objective knowledge of all reality, whether anthropological, sociocultural, historical, or cosmological. I also accept the stipulation that objective knowledge of reality is a confirmation-testing of the realization of expectations and hopes whose source is in faith, based on subjective experience, and moreover that there is an objective aspect that resorts to scientific-rational tools, even in the confirmation of subjective experiences. Therefore, the answer to the question “Do we discern divine intervention in history characterized by ethical-teleological purposiveness?” is dependent on an objective knowledge of reality examined by scientific method. Yet all this, to the best of my knowledge, is not sufficient to undermine those subjective foundational experiences in which faith is rooted to begin with. These include the experience of the renewal of life; apprehending life, in its genesis and renewal, as a gift; appreciating life as positive. They include a person’s apprehending the uniqueness of his human experience in the complex interconnection of his body and soul. They include the knowing faith confronting the experiences of our age 71 of God as Creator that a person adopts as a result of contemplating the meaning of one’s physical existence and the meaning of the world’s existence; also the knowing of God as loving and commanding that a person arrives at from listening to the voice that speaks within oneself from one’s soul. All these indeed do not “prove,” in the sense of scientific method or rationalistic philosophy, but they are not refuted by them. We stand here before a domain open to the wisdom of the heart, the wisdom of inner contemplation, to which scientific methodology is not relevant and which for rationalistic philosophy is a “dead zone.” This philosophy knows nothing about this domain, and so it can pronounce no judgment on anything pertaining to it, whether positively or negatively. It thus follows that the central question regarding faith from the point of view of the intellectual process based on it is the question of evil, that is to say, the question of “theodicy”: justifying God in the face of the phenomenon of the various kinds of evil that the believer encounters in his life circumstances. One can indeed say that grappling emotionally and theoretically with the question of theodicy accompanies monotheistic faith from its inception. It constitutes the greater part of speculation comprised within faith itself. The scholars of the history of Israelite faith have concluded that one cannot find organized theological thinking, much less systematic religious philosophy, in the Bible or in the Talmudic literature. However, their confrontation with the question of God’s justice belies this generalization. Here one finds something close to systematic thinking even in the Bible, especially in the book of Job (and in its interpretations in the midrashic literature). It would even seem that there is no book in the Bible that does not grapple in its way with the question of evil, which later becomes the central axis on which the various genres and movements of Jewish theology and religious philosophy revolve. How did the sages of Jewish faith contend with this problem? This question is indeed one of past history, but as such it has a direct bearing on the present issue. As we said before, faith is a living process. It is a continual process of feeling and thinking in response to a changing reality. As such, faith embodies in itself the accumulation of historical life experience that comprises after the fact the point of departure for a person’s life experience. In other words, the believer is oriented by and puts together his or her worldview on a prior educational foundation, the foundation of a legacy transmitted from generation to generation. Hand-in-hand with having the traditional sources of faith pointed out to him, the believer adopts the believing thought process and the totality of its accumulated wisdom. His questions as an individual and child of his time are raised 72 eliezer schweid against the backdrop of what he has received and grow out of what he has received. This is how they come to be raised and formulated for him in fact: he wonders whether the answers that were arrived at by the sages of faith in the past are still convincing for him in the face of the experiences of the present. If he is satisfied with what he has learned—well and good. But if the received answers are doubtful to him, it will be up to him to go back and examine whether he is still asking in the same manner as one asked in the past. For only if he reformulates his questions will he be able to understand why the previous answers do not convince him and how he can develop the received wisdom of faith embodied in them in order to answer his questions today.

In order to address this question in its present formulation, we must examine the traditional resources of wisdom that shaped the Jewish response to this problem and describe how it originated and developed up to our time. But of course we can only do this in a summary way, pointing to its basic parameters. First, we should propose a distinction between two planes of the experience of evil: (1) the plane of every individual’s private experience of his fate as a natural bodily creature (death, illness, pain, natural calamities and afflictions, and the like); (2) the plane of experience of individuals, groups, societies, nations, and religious groups of moral, social, and political evil, namely, the plane of historical events. Surely there is a connection between these two planes. After all, the human being’s finitude and physical vulnerability as a natural creature, dependent on his material environment for his very existence, are the essential condition for the ethical suffering that people are able to inflict on each other. Nevertheless, there is a substantive difference between these two kinds of evil. First, only moral suffering, rooted in interpersonal relations, can be attributed directly to a malicious intention to cause evil. Second, only regarding this kind of suffering is there room to speculate directly on the connection between sin and punishment or between a person’s righteous or wicked character and his life’s destiny. We may thus determine in advance that the problem of theodicy on the historical plane is far more serious. But the question can be raised, too, on the plane of man’s fate as a natural physical creature. If the human is distinguished in nature as a creature blessed with an intellectual soul, if indeed it is the intellectual soul that raises him up to the level of a creature created in God’s image, if the whole world was created only in order that it might become the home and field of activity of the human being faith confronting the experiences of our age 73 who was called to be a “partner in the work of creation,” then it is in place to ask: Why did God punish His human creature with a perishable body, with vulnerability to illness and pain, and saddle him with existential dependence on external resources that forces him to shoulder the yoke of grinding labor? It is also in place to ask: Why did God implant in the human the urge to rebel against his Creator’s commandments, which seems to provide the justification for all the punishments just described? Could not the loving God have taken more care in providing bodily forti- tude and spiritual perfection for the object of His love? Surely these questions must inevitably pose a challenge to set beside the believer’s primal positive experience of life. Yet it seems that, on the basis of that primal life experience, one can deal with them by means of the emotional and intellectual values generated by and through faith itself. First, faith is based on, and in turn confirms, man’s inner freedom, along with the sense that nature is the arena of man’s free creativity for the sake of fulfilling his desires. If so, the imperfection that characterizes man himself and his natural environment, and even the libidinal urges that drive him to sin, are necessary conditions for the concrete realization of the freedom of choice and the goal of creativity. Second, faith itself is a voluntary preference for the positive solution (love of life and love of God, who gives it) over the negative solution (fear of life, denial of its meaning, and loathing it), because in faith one finds the consoling compensation for life’s suffering: if the believer overcomes her suffering out of faith in her Creator and thus demonstrates her love for her Creator, she finds the good that is destined for her in suffering itself, and even in death. On the one hand she understands and knows that a human being cannot be whole and perfect like God, and so her finitude is the essential and necessary characteristic of her being a creature. Therefore if she accepts human existence itself as a value, it is incumbent on her to accept in love the limitation and suffering that is part and parcel of it. On the other hand, when one has made one’s peace with suffering out of an affirmation of life and love for its Creator, one has thereby achieved the supreme life-value that is a human being’s lot: closeness to God. One’s love for God, and God’s reciprocating love—these give meaning to one’s joy and suffering. They are conceived as the supreme good before which all bodily suffering is as naught. This is reward and recompense. Note well: Faith, by activating itself as a concrete bond between the person and God, creates a distinctive emotional-intellectual content that justifies it as a value—the emotional and intellectual content of the love between God and humanity, which is a life arena unto itself. If the 74 eliezer schweid believer arrives at the high level of dedicating herself to God through all her deeds (by observing God’s commandments), she achieves a quality of life in which can be found a final and absolute answer to the question of evil on the plane of human existence in nature. Out of a creature’s absolute humility before God, one can raise oneself up to glimpsing the eternity that shines forth every moment of life before God. Every moment of life, even a moment of suffering, will then possess absolute value. This is the gist of the solution that the Book of Job suggested for the riddle of existential suffering, suffering caused by the calamities of nature, the dev- astating illness and fear of death that visit every person, whether good or evil, in the last analysis. This book documents the developmental journey of a believer, who at first appears on the level of a “god-fearing” person, a level that is expressed in his demanding expectation that a righteous person should be rewarded with happiness in a perfect earthly existence—a reward that of course is impossible in this world. The book supports this disgruntled, suffering, god-fearing man in his complaint that it is impossible to explain his awful sufferings on the basis of his sins. He did not commit the kinds of sins that could justify his receiving such afflictions as a punishment. But it seeks a solution to the question beyond the question of justice and injustice, in the progress of this god-fearing man to a higher level of faith, namely, “love of God,” which is born of the bond of faith as a supreme life-value. With it, suffering takes on a meaning rooted in the intimate closeness between the divine Creator and His creature. The question of man’s suffering in his fate as a natural physical creature thus has a solution in the maturation of the life of faith as a force that by itself creates a reality between God and the human partner. But is the same true of the question of evil that is manifest on the interpersonal plane, the plane of history? Here is the crux of the question from the standpoint of the person who believes that God is Master of the World, Who establishes its orders, commands it, judges it, and guides it. If God is the King Who rules over His world in justice, from where does the wickedness that is directed explicitly against God’s will and commands come? How can it be that precisely the wicked—who are unfaithful to God’s covenant and cast off the yoke of God’s sovereignty—prosper? How can it be that they are allowed to fortify their corrupt, malicious power over other human beings and over their entire life-world? In particular, how can it be that they are allowed to exercise domination over the righteous, who are loyal to the covenant, and who believe in God and observe God’s commandments? Even more pointedly, how can it be that they are allowed to faith confronting the experiences of our age 75 persecute and exterminate precisely those righteous on account of their righteousness, which makes them enemies of evil? We saw above that the believers’ recollection of the past in which the covenant between Israel and God was founded and established singled out in historical memory certain marvelous events in which God appeared as a Redeemer, drove away the wicked, gave protection to His enslaved and persecuted loyalists, and restored the honor and status that they deserved. The fact that God redeemed His people and thus laid the foundation for their existence as a nation on the basis of His covenant with them was the formidable foothold for the faith that God governed history justly. As long as Israel exists, this fact exists as an irrefutable fact. This was the secret of the persistence of the people throughout its suffering-laden history. More- over, the Jewish people did well to treasure in its historical memory and reconstruct in its liturgical life several other major events that attested to the divine redeeming guidance that found concrete expression in its history. But one could not ignore the fact that alongside these great but rare occurrences, there occurred also calamitous events. Moreover, in the present moments, which are the normal course of history, the proportion of ever-increasing calamitous events predominates. That is to say, the present moments of history are by and large experiences of disappointment that should at first sight contradict the faith in divine providence. The righteous suffered for their righteousness even within their own people when it was in its ascendancy, whereas afterward the Jewish people suffered and suffer at the hands of their many enemies precisely because of their fidelity to the covenant. In reality, the adherents of other religions, who deny the God of truth and rebel against His commandments, are the victors who determine the course of history. How is it possible to maintain, in the face of this reality, the belief in a just divine Providence? This, then, is the reality that raises the question in its full force. There is enough here to contradict the faith in God’s sovereignty in His world or His good, righteous nature, unless the believer—through a deeper examination that is able to explain the events of disappointment and suffering as being for the good and to show how they constitute necessary stages for the realization of the kingdom of justice in the world—finds a convincing way to prefer the experiences that fashioned her faith and reinforced it over the experiences that contradict it. A second general observation follows from this point. A review of Jew- ish history gives the impression that in contrast to the earliest memories of the Exodus from Egypt and settlement in the land of Israel up to the 76 eliezer schweid ascendancy in the time of David and Solomon, later history continues with a continual decline eventuating in the reality of destruction and exile. There were indeed also periods of regeneration and maturation. But even in the time of the ascendancy of the Hasmonean dynasty, the Jew- ish people were not restored to the same level of political prosperity that they had in the First Temple period, after which their condition worsened considerably. This was the case in the extended period of the exile. There may have been countries and periods during exilic history in which the Jews enjoyed relative prosperity, but nothing like a “normal” national existence. After the periods of prosperity came even longer periods of greater decline. One should not equate the condition of the Jews under Persian rule to that under Greek rule, or their condition under Hellenistic rule to that under Roman rule, or the latter to their condition under the rule of Christian and Moslem regimes. In the last case, the condition of exile became definitive, and its religious meaning stood out most prominently. The Jewish people survived in exile because of their religion, but on its account they were persecuted, and from time to time attempts were made to uproot them completely through expulsions, forced conversions, and pogroms. It would thus seem, at first glance, that if there was any inner law governing the history of the Jewish people among the nations of the world, it was not a pattern of progress toward a final redemption but progress toward destruction. And yet, in the face of every major calamity that was visited on the people, messianic hopes were awakened, but all these hopes were quickly dashed by the worsening reality, whether with regard to the people’s condition or the motivation of their cruel enemies who persecuted them on account of their religion, and especially on account of their faith in themselves as a chosen people who had a covenant with their God. A third observation pertains to the manner in which the logic of faith coped with the phenomenon of progressive crisis. It is natural and obvious that every additional disappointment and decline in the people’s fate demanded, for maintaining faith, the discovery of a consoling faith that plumbed deeper in its understanding of the hidden depth of reality, was more convincing in explaining events, and offered more compensation in the redeeming consolation that it promised to counter the suffering. We can point first of all to a decided tendency to magnify the ideal, perfect character of the vision of reward, first in worldly or quasi-worldly reality, then later in the reality transcending earthly existence, whether in the course of messianic history that would supersede the order of earthly existence, or in the course of personal eschatology that would compensate faith confronting the experiences of our age 77 the suffering believer with life after death. But we can also discern another prominent development: beyond a certain threshold of suffering from malicious wickedness directed against the Jew on account of his faith, even the promise of the most ideal reward in trans-worldly redemption or life after death cannot provide sufficient compensation or justification. The power of unjustified suffering, devoid of meaning in the present, will outweigh any hope of reward in the future unless it be possible to find the justification not only in what will transpire after the suffering but within the suffering itself. The believer must find good in the depths of evil. He must discover a positive meaning in its very being. At least he must understand why it comprises an inevitable condition, quite necessary, for the good that God designates for His faithful. Therefore we find as a late development, after many other attempts to justify God’s ways in Juda- ism, an increasing tendency to discover evil as a certain necessary facet of good or as a necessary dialectical stage of transition from relative good to absolute good. This is the basic idea of messianic theodicy, especially in mystical religious thought. A final general observation: In parallel with the above-mentioned developments, one finds an increasing tendency to deny the propriety of the question, especially by denying the separate existence of the historical plane and reducing it to the plane of the fate of the human being in nature in a way that the response given in the book of Job will apply also to the plane of ethical relations among human beings in their social and political circles. This tendency was preferred especially by the rationalist philosophers. Their basic assumption was that the world as it exists is the best possible, and that the good in it predominates over the evil. Evil is the inevitable concrete limitation that is a part of worldly existence. Existence and life are good in themselves. Evil is only a kind of non-being, and so one cannot regard God as its cause. God is the cause only of being and of the good. As for the implications regarding the plane of interpersonal ethical relations, the simple conclusion is that human beings bear full responsibility for good and evil in their individual and collective lives. If one could speak of special divine providence over human beings in this plane, it is embodied in the reason with which man is endowed. This aids the wise in maximizing the possible good in their lives, especially through a proper understanding of their true destiny in life, which is to attain moral and intellectual perfection and to prevent accidents and calamities in their lives as much as possible. They should also recognize that evil deeds are fated to backfire on their perpetrators, whereas good deeds bring benefit to their performers. This is the true understanding 78 eliezer schweid of reward and punishment. Virtue is its own reward. It is clear that this solution to the question of justifying God’s ways in determining the fate of the individual and guiding history is based on an optimistic evaluation of the nature of reality. Good predominates over evil, and whoever chooses his life-course rightly toward attaining a good purpose will find the good despite all the varieties of suffering that attack humanity. In any case it is clear that the complaints of believers against God’s ways on account of their suffering the evils of humanity is regarded by this way of thinking as ignorant, if not sinful. Making one’s peace with the limitations of reality by actively maximizing human possibilities is the solution that brings true reward—namely, ethical and spiritual perfection. We should observe that a similar tendency of thought is to be found among the pietists of simple faith. The sincere believer knows one thing with full certainty: that it is not within a person’s power to arrive at an understanding of God’s ways with His creatures, and therefore it is not up to him to judge them. One should stick to one’s assigned task: to fulfill God’s commandments and to trust that whatever life brings his way, whether suffering or prosperity, is for the good. One should not for a moment doubt God’s justice, or the good purpose of everything that befalls one. It follows that the very act of caviling over God’s governance or of raising the question of God’s justice is itself a defect in faith—a sin worthy of punishment.

How does the question stand in our own time? There are two complementary focal points to this question: the challenge of scientific and technological progress, which affords organized humanity unprecedented control over good and evil in its surrounding natural environment and its socio- political arrangements; and the challenge of the phenomenon of radical evil of a new kind, unprecedented in several respects in human history. Theologians who tend to a fundamentalist faith outlook often look for support to the statistical formulation of physical laws in quantum mechanics; to contradictions to be found among the results of scientific observation from different perspectives of micro- and macro-processes in the world; and to general scientific theories concerning the beginning of the universe and the origin of matter, in order to “prove” that the ideas of the creation of the world ex nihilo and of God’s intervention in the world through volitional, supernatural action are confirmed by science, or at least not contradicted by it. But it seems that this approach—seizing on the possibility to provide a credible solution to questions that were raised in the context of the sciences and rationalistic philosophy of the faith confronting the experiences of our age 79

Middle Ages and early modern period, but are not being raised in our day—is only a distraction from the truly serious problem raised more emphatically not by scientific methodology but by the technological and organizational-administrative achievements that organized human societies have managed to achieve. The key question we should be asking is: Does the collective, organized accumulation of knowledge of nature and the organized capability to achieve through it almost any objective that humanity seriously strives for—whether moral or malicious and evil— prove or contradict the assumption that there is an ethical-purposive inner law that directs development, both in the universe and in human society and culture? Today we must answer this question with a firm negative. On the contrary: progress in the sciences arrived at its greatest achievements by forgoing the assumption of a rational-moral teleology in nature in order to seek out its inner law of starkly causal processes. Nature is value neutral. It limits the power of human control to the possibilities within it, but we cannot find in nature any limitation that can be described as the expression of a moral-purposive guiding will. The same applies to human nature. The assumption that man, in his innocent state, is good by nature has not been verified by any line of scientific psychological or anthropological research. On the contrary, it has been demonstrated that this is only a subjective belief, rooted in the choice of certain human beings based on their free nature. It follows that people can choose their nature to a large extent and can shape their personalities in an ethical direction, a utilitarian direction, or in the direction of evil for its own sake. Moreover, historical experience teaches that the potential for evil in the human race is manifested in actuality in history to an extent that threatens to destroy its potential for moral good. In any case, the rapidly expanding capability to use the forces of nature to positive or negative effect is implemented to a large extent for the positive, but no less for the negative, even when the negative dimensions far exceed the threshold of a perceptible danger of humanity’s self-destruction. In other words, through its development of scientific and technological progress, organized humanity proved, on the one hand, that it was quickly realizing the aspiration to quasi-divine domination of the natural world around it but, at the same time, that it was not realizing with the same rapidity and to the same extent the moral self-control required of it in order to survive. It was operating at terrific force against itself and against the natural environment sustaining it. Yet there was no sign of a purposive force—either within nature or above it—to intervene and stop such a course, nor was there manifested within humanity any moral force that one could trust 80 eliezer schweid to stop the course of destruction in time so that the positive achievement should prevail over the negative. On the basis of all this, one could argue that the classic philosophical conception is confirmed: good action brings good to those who perform it and to all humanity, whereas evil action punishes its perpetrators in the end. But what consolation is there in this knowledge if requiting the malicious acts of states or other organized groups itself becomes more and more of a threat to all humanity, both to the innocent subjects of those regimes who have not themselves sinned and to those who must fight them? This is the broad cultural-historical context on the basis of which arises the question of the extreme, unprecedented evil that was manifested in the Second World War, especially in the Holocaust. What is unprecedented in the Holocaust is not only the idea of a “final solution” through the systematic slaughter of every member of a certain people, nor the decisive step of programming the implementation of such an idea, with all its diabolical ramifications, without which carrying out slaughter to such a systematic extent would have been impossible. The diabolical dimension was manifested most nakedly in the ability not only to start carrying out such a deed, but to persist in it without interference, either internal or external. The result of this lack of real opposition was not only the slaughter of millions of human beings but the creation of a whole other world, an unprecedented kind of organized existence of human beings maintained for the purpose of murder and death, a regime that was able to keep going, undisturbed from without or within, for the last three years of World War II. The unprecedented achievement of the Nazis was exactly this: they demonstrated that organized mankind could create for itself, in a whole region of its span of control and in the very heart of the most developed civilization (precisely in it!), a complete, persistent form of “human” existence that can be defined unequivocally as “anti-human” in the humanistic sense and as “anti-godlike” in the sense of the monotheistic religions. Indeed, the latter assertion is not only applicable from the perspective of humanism and biblically based monotheism. It is also applicable from the perspective of those who committed the crime and of those who participated in it. We recall that the Holocaust was an act directed explicitly against humanism and against the ethical monotheistic religious principles of the Jewish people (and of Christianity). In order to carry it out, the murderers had to betray their human image and to collaborate with the cruelest enterprise ever known, one that involved destruction of their faith confronting the experiences of our age 81 own human image—a process of moral degeneration preceding the program of physical destruction. We will not exaggerate if we claim that the Holocaust was the most aggressive attempt by human beings to murder the soul of humanity—the source of all faith in God or humankind. In order to spell out the meaning of all this, we should emphasize the fact that in order to carry out their “final solution” against the Jews, they could not rest content with a mere outbreak of evil that was a simple violation of the rules of morality. Nor was it enough to activate a stealth apparatus operating secretly, in violation of the state’s criminal code. In order to realize a comprehensive plan of this kind, the Nazis had to create, in compliance with the laws of their state, a demarcated domain in which the contradiction of all human ethical or religious laws was the sole law, governing and directing all actions. The murderers committed their murders in accord with this anti-law, and the victims were required and forced to surrender themselves to be murdered and even to render assistance in compliance with that same law. Thus a reality was created for which dehumanization and murder were the underlying principle, the goal, and its entire substance. The fact that such a reality could take shape; the fact that desecration of such broad scope and such conscious and decisive abrogation of everything that the faith of Israel held as true teaching could be carried out; the fact that, in contradiction to the exalted prophetic vision of the messianic end of days in which the kingdom of God would be manifested in an order of peace, righteousness, and loving-kindness throughout the entire world, history could reach rock-bottom and bring forth a reality that could literally, without mythologizing it, be called Hell on earth; the fact that God did not prevent this reality from emerging or destroy it wrathfully either by miraculous intervention or by the immanent forces of history, but the opposite (God allowed it to take shape and to persist until it achieved its objectives within the Nazi sphere of influence)—all these facts together appear in the eyes of many Jewish theologians and religious philosophers of our day to refute decisively the faith in a divine providence that guides the history of the Jewish people and humanity. We emphasize: it refutes such a faith in their view, as they have formulated it—including the modern idealistic formulation, which identified providence with the idea of progress in human history. But we must also voice an opposite view. According to another group of theologians and religious philosophers (and sometimes according to the same theologians who say that the Holocaust shattered their faith), grappling with the reality of the Holocaust was a factor that turned the faith 82 eliezer schweid in divine providence into an absolute need, as if it were the only hope or saving way out for humanity. This is the primary explanation for the fact that, during the Holocaust and immediately after it, most believers refused to surrender their belief in divine providence. Even in the face of the Holocaust—or more precisely, just because of it—they were able to enlist the reserves of moral energy that were necessary in order to resist, to survive, and to look forward in hope, solely on the basis of their tot- tering faith. If they were to give up on it, they would be giving up on the hope of life and on life itself. They refused. The need for faith became for them the source of its validity. Thus the reflection on matters of faith in our age stands in the face of two contradictory forces: the shattering of faith and the affirmation of its necessity.

What, then, are the ways of coping with this threat that believing Jews have displayed until now? With respect to the primal need to save one’s life through saving one’s faith, one should note first of all that the dogmatic religious camp, which persisted in clinging vigorously to the faith outlooks that had been articulated before the Holocaust, sees a broad spectrum of ways of coping, both during the Holocaust and after it. We include here the dogmatic religious position that upholds the fundamentalist faith in direct divine intervention in every detail of what happens historically to individuals, groups, and peoples. This fact contains a bitter irony, to which we must pay note while we grapple directly with its challenge. This fundamentalist outlook clings stubbornly to the faith that, no matter what happened during the Holocaust, we must see in it a divine intention, and even a direct divine intervention, as if carrying out a just sentence. This turns out to be the only theological solution that cannot be refuted by finding an inner contradiction or paradoxical ambivalence. Many will find this solution morally repugnant. Yet its logic, based on faith, is not susceptible to refutation. Whoever can believe everything that this implies—in other words, whoever can attribute to Jews or to the Jewish people an individual or collective sin that justifies such a punishment—whoever can justify the invention of such a punishment (and it is a fact that there are believers capable of this) will succeed in fitting his faith in divine providence to the inner logic of his religious thinking and to the factual reality of history. The fundamentalist response to the Holocaust denies the claim that it was theologically anomalous. Even if the dimensions of evil manifested in it were unprecedented, these dimensions only attest to the depths of depravity into which those sinful people must sink who rebel against God’s commandments, who deny God’s reality, and who have the temerity faith confronting the experiences of our age 83 to usurp God’s authority. From the standpoint of God, who governs His world justly, the same explanations that were persuasive in the eyes of simple believers in the past are adequate today too, even with respect to the sufferings inflicted on the righteous and blameless when the decree is carried out. The righteous suffer on account of the people that sinned. In the end, such theologians say, with their straightforward logic, from the standpoint of divine justice there is no difference between the murder of one innocent child and the murder of hundreds of thousands or millions. The difference in our revulsion is obvious. But this is only from a human, not a divine, perspective. As we said, there is no logical way to refute this kind of thinking. One needs only the determined and stubborn will to hold onto it in the face of the moral protest that rises in the end from the depths of the emotional-ethical source of faith itself . . . One should not be surprised, therefore, that in the last analysis only the very few are wedded to this fundamentalist logic, even among the Orthodox. Most Orthodox thinkers admit that the shock to their faith on account of the Holocaust was unusual and exceptional. They cannot bear the thought that the murder of millions of innocent children and the other atrocities of the Holocaust are the outcome of a divine decree. They do not accept the argument that the final defeat of the Nazis, the rescue of the remnant of the Jewish people (especially in the lands that the Nazis did not conquer), and even the establishment of the State of Israel provide any consolation or justification. They do indeed tend to see in the rise of the State the action of providence and even a miracle, and they do indeed find in it a tangible demonstration that divine providence exists. But the enigma regarding the possibility of the Holocaust is not thereby laid to rest. Rescue came too late for those who needed it most. It came only after the Nazis almost completed carrying out their crime in their area of control. Is it possible to find, then, justification for the fact that the miracle of establishing the State came after such a catastrophe? Can any moral logic connect the Holocaust to the State? The question is posed in all its severity. Yet at the same time the Orthodox theologians will not surrender their basic faith that God exercises providence over humanity and over the Jewish people. The only way out for such Orthodox theologians is the idea, found already in the Bible, that sometimes God “hides His face” from His people and abandons it to its fate. Responsibility for the Holocaust is laid on the wickedness of human beings—the Nazis and those who assisted them, who planned it and carried it out. It falls also on those who were able to prevent or rescue but stood by. God did not want the Holocaust, did 84 eliezer schweid not plan it, and was not involved in carrying it out. On the contrary— this atrocity was performed not only against God’s will but against God Himself. But still God had to allow the Nazis to carry out their crime. Why? Formulating the matter in this way articulates the difficulty that still remains. According to the biblical conception, “hiding the Face” is a kind of active providence, that is to say, a kind of punishment. The people must have sinned to the point that they were not worthy of divine rescue and were therefore abandoned to their fate. Nevertheless, we should recall that providence is not abolished even in the time of “hiding the Face.” If the enemies of the Jewish people exceed the limit of proper punishment, through their sinful cruelty, God will not forsake His people. He will rescue them and avenge them. If so, if providence is maintained even during the “hiding of the Face” and comes back in the miracle of the State after the Holocaust, what justifies maintaining the “hiding of the Face” up to that time? Why did God make His peace with deeds that go against justice and against Him? Are we to ascribe this, after all, to punishment for Israel’s sins? Some Orthodox theologians respond to this difficulty with the traditional conclusion that God’s ways surpass our understanding. Human beings cannot understand, and perhaps they will not be able to refrain from sharp protest. Precisely as believers they will not be able to make their peace with such terrible evil. But faith remains, despite the protest and even within it. Surely there was a reason that we cannot grasp, which may be clarified at some time in the future. For whatever reason, God could not save His people. We will trust in Him and give thanks for the rescue, which was late in coming but finally came. But some theologians, more daring, seek a way to understand some of God’s hidden ways, to the extent that they are manifest in historical reality. In their view, the hiding of God’s face derived from the need that appeared in modern times, in light of the development of the sciences, technology, and military and political organization, to leave organized mankind the space to maximize the freedom of choice and control it has achieved and the responsibility bound up with that freedom. This achievement in itself, these Modern Orthodox thinkers argue, is positive and not opposed to God’s will. On the contrary, man is appointed to civilize the world and to be a partner in God’s creation. But the more this destiny is realized, the heavier is man’s responsibility and the greater its dangers. God thus wanted to give organized humanity the opportunity to experience this responsibility and to test its real ability to cope with it. Because of God’s purpose in guiding history, He thus had to leave organized faith confronting the experiences of our age 85 humanity to deal by itself with the terrifying crime that was manifested in it. For this reason, and not because of the sins of the Jewish people, God hid His face and “bore” the sin against His people and against Him. He left the task of defeating the Nazi regime and rescuing the remnant of Jewry to the nations that fought against it. Thus God led organized humanity to a higher stage of maturity. But how is it possible to justify through these pedagogical considerations the fate of millions of innocent victims? The Orthodox theologians admit that from this standpoint it is impossible to understand and impossible to forgive. The protest is unavoidable. Believers can only cry out to heaven against this terrible injustice. But note: in the context of pedagogical “hiding the Face,” the protest also becomes an expression of faith, and thus it enables the shocked believers to accept, nevertheless, the miracle of survival and establishment of the State after the Holocaust with a feeling of thankfulness and as a trium- phant demonstration that the saving providence of God exists in any case. The believer protests, but makes peace with his God. After human and national history returns to its “proper” course and signs of redemption are even manifested in it, the believer returns to trust in God’s governance, as previously. We turn now to non-Orthodox responses. These are based on a prior rejection of the idea of providence in its fundamentalist sense. The assumption that God intervenes supernaturally or manipulatively in natural causes in order to deflect the course of history to His will is, according to this conception, a childish, naïve religiosity unworthy of mature believers, especially in the modern age. As the Talmudic rabbis said, “The world operates according to its custom.” The only way in which one can understand divine providence in the context of the historical experience of mature people in our age is through prophetic revelation, which is the recognition of God’s will and commandments, acknowledging His obligating authority, and full readiness to obey to the point of sanctifying God’s Name. In any case, human beings bear direct responsibility for history. This means that only as long as people do God’s will does God appear as a providential guide. A true believer will not expect direct divine intervention in his personal fate or in the fate of his people on the historical plane. On the contrary, in the face of what takes place in history and in the face of the danger lurking in wait for humanity, the believer must recognize the severity of his responsibility and must take on determined historical activity for the sake of “perfecting the world.” It is up to him whether God’s will is going to be fulfilled or whether human history will miss the boat. 86 eliezer schweid

We should add here that prior to the Holocaust modern activist theology relied on the trusting faith in man’s ethical nature, on the settled certainty that history displays ethical, social, and political progress, and on the assumption that progress is rooted in positive forces embodied in human culture. After World War II and after the Holocaust, can one still rely on such beliefs? Is it in the power of believers to bear the historical responsibility that their faith lays on their shoulders? Do they have the strength to stand up to organized evil, “to perfect the world,” and to advance humanity toward its goals? The general sense prevailing among the majority of people after World War II is that it is impossible to rely on human moral nature or on a law that necessitates ethical progress in history. This is because the expectation for such an outcome was tested in action and failed. It follows that even the faith in divine providence manifest in history and not above it, working through the actions of believing human beings, is liable to appear today childish and naïve, no less than the faith in miraculous divine intervention.

Finally, we should mention two new versions, one modern-philosophical and the other ḥaredi [Orthodox],7 of the solution that denies the propriety of the question. The philosophical version argues that the question is only the result of the narrow-minded and ignorant egocentricity of the human species, which sees itself in its folly as the center of the world. It is wrongheaded from the outset to assume that God, the supreme cause of the world’s existence, has specific knowledge and regard for mankind, all the more so for human individuals and groups. It is equally wrongheaded to expect that God will take cognizance of a person, judge him, have consideration for him, or hear his prayer. All these are only the characteristics of an anthropomorphic, ignorant faith and, if the full truth be told, constitute idolatry. Man should nevertheless regard God, who is transcendent and inconceivable, as his King. To be sure, this conception only represents the perspective of a human believer. It tells us nothing about the will of God Himself or His knowledge. A person who accepts the yoke of God’s sovereignty thereby expresses his free decision, which determines the meaning of his life from his own perspective. This is a decision that a person accepts for its own sake, and it obligates him alone. When he

7 Ḥaredi generally means ultra-Orthodox as opposed to Modern Orthodox. But the position here is characteristic of Yeshayahu Leibovitz, a Modern Orthodox thinker who was original in many of his views. (LL) faith confronting the experiences of our age 87 fulfills what he is able to understand by way of his tradition as God’s command, he thus attains the supreme, perfect, and irreplaceable reward: he has realized his freedom and found meaning for his life. But he will lose it if he expects God to reward him, to hear his prayer, or to intervene in any way in his fate. Each person’s physical fate is determined exclusively by the laws and accidents of nature and by the exercise or non-exercise of his and his neighbor’s moral responsibility. Indeed, on the basis of such a conception, it is possible to say that the will of God is fulfilled in history when believing human beings succeed in realizing their objectives. But it is clear that they have only a metaphorical understanding of the concept of providence. If the efforts of believers are doomed to failure, this will not provide any occasion for raising the question of God’s justice. The conduct of history, or the happiness of humanity, a drop in the ocean of infinity, is none of God’s concern. The ḥaredi version argues, by contrast, that the world, and man as a part of it, was not created for itself but for the sake of God and God’s glory. The question in that case is not what is man’s good but what is the good of God’s kingdom? Does man have any judgment on that? Certainly not. What is truly good for us is not clearly known, much less what is good from God’s perspective. It is left for us only to identify all the deeds that are an expression of God’s will as good insofar as they have occurred. Believers are obligated to put their will at the service of God’s will, whole- heartedly and without judging. Then it will be good for them even in the depth of their misfortune, for at least they will be sanctifying God’s Name before the world.

I return now to my personal evaluation: In my summary consideration of the rationales that Jews of our day have developed for their faith, I find no reason to disqualify the faith present in any of them, though they nearly all exhibit a paradoxical ambivalence bordering on the absurd. Faith toler- ates all of this if it is strong enough from the outset. I emphasize that we are speaking of theodicial reflection that assumes faith at the outset and is even aware from the outset that it is struggling with a question that has no “well-rounded” solution that does not require a high threshold of tolerance for dissonances and heartaches. For believers who proposed answers that appealed to them for the question that threatened their faith, there seem to be sufficient subjective reasons to believe as they believe. They also have sufficient subjective reasons to refuse to give up their faith in the face of the Holocaust. In the face of the Holocaust—that is, in the face of the fact that appeared amidst organized humanity, who are liable to 88 eliezer schweid perpetrate Holocausts—they resort all the more to faith. We should therefore not be surprised that their faith adds something of its own consideration in order to persuade them of the reasonableness of the solutions that appear to them appropriate to this historical reality, although every one of the solutions has a defect that continues to threaten faith with disqualification and refutation. Therefore it is also understandable why some of the thinkers who deal with this atrocity resort to open acknowledgement and expression of protest against God (it appears to them, after the example of Job, acceptable to their Father in Heaven as a gesture of suffering faith) in order to maintain their position at the very limit of their tolerance and not break. It seems permissible to say that most of those who propose solutions present their words in this way intentionally. They understand full well that only believers who want to reinforce their faith because they believe absolutely in the value of faith itself as a supreme reason for living and who are conscious that on topics such as these there is a clear limit to man’s knowledge and judgment will accept such solutions and find in them relief that will enable them to increase the power of their faith to be greater than the power of their doubts. Nonbelievers will not only fail to be convinced to believe by such explanations—no explanations, even more persuasive ones, will turn a nonbeliever into a believer—but these explanations will appear questionable and far-fetched. If so, it is possible to conclude simply that whoever is not in need of such solutions will not be able to discover the reason why they appear reasonable to believers. But there is no doubt that this gap between believers and nonbelievers constitutes a great limitation also from the perspective of believers. The truth is that they, too, accept these solutions only under great pressure, almost as a Hobson’s choice: because their faith demands that they engage in historical activity to mend the world and to fulfill their responsibility as believers, they must make themselves understood, understood precisely to those faithless whose existence requires mending. They must make themselves understood in order to exert influence. They must speak in the language of what is reasonable to the general reality orientation of the ordinary people around them. If the impression that their faith-rationale makes on their audience creates a sense of strangeness and alienation, even rejection from their socio-cultural environment, will they be able to fulfill their obligation? Will they succeed in educating a younger generation in faith? These remarks apply also to the most extreme philosophical solution, which denies the propriety of the question by absolutely rejecting the idea of historical divine providence in order to save faith in God as the faith confronting the experiences of our age 89 metaphysical meaning of all existence. It is obvious that this view is in flat contradiction to the faith-reasoning of the traditional sources, from the Bible to contemporary religious thought, although those who express it continue to cling to the sources and to present their own faith rationales as the true Jewish monotheistic outlook. Moreover, it is their intention to support through their radical claim the Orthodox obligation to observe the halakha as the expression of “serving God.” If so, is this not a case of fulfilling traditional faith at the cost of abolishing it? Does absolute devotion to God’s commandments make sense if one does not recognize the moral value of God’s will and of the reality of which He is the cause? Does it make sense without love as a moral affect? But if faith is still conceived as a revelation of love and a preference for existence as a good over nothingness, destruction, and malicious evil, does this not also necessitate the expectation that the world should embody the moral purpose of its Creator and that this selfsame moral purpose should be manifested in history? What, then, has the believer salvaged from his faith if for its sake he has surrendered its primary content leaving only the one-sided gesture of obedience? How does his faith imbue his life with meaning if the connection of ethical love between him and his Creator is left out of it and he is only fulfilling a commandment before a deity who does not relate to him personally even through the commandment itself? There will be no escape, then, from the conclusion that absolute, extreme denial of the idea of divine providence in history is only an intellectual exercise that seeks to justify, through dialectical negation, an ethical faith in a God whose commandment and providence emanate from His unfathomable hidden being. Or in other words, we have a faith that attempts to maintain its ethical expectations by denying their validity. . . In any case, it is my conclusion that such solutions can indeed be valid for those who subscribe to them on the basis of their faith, but we discern in all of them the perplexing attempt to cover up the fact that they do not restore to their proponents, after the historical trauma they have undergone, a “perfect faith” in the traditional conception. Therefore they are not amenable to open and straightforward dialogue with the worldviews that represent the sense of historical reality of the majority of the Jewish public, which no longer believes but in whose midst it is the believers’ task to operate, to influence, and even to educate the next generation of believers.

If the previous sentence is correct, perhaps it also points to the only honest way out of this intellectual impasse and lack of communication with the environment: to describe the situation of the believer honestly as it really 90 eliezer schweid is, to reveal faith for what it is, wounded and not whole, through a train of reflection that adequately gives voice to the two experiential perspectives that struggle within it, the one that renews and maintains it in full force as an absolute need of humanity in our age, the other that challenges and refutes it, without pretending to solve what cannot be solved even by the gambit of denying the propriety of the question. In other words: to admit simply that, after World War II and the Holocaust, in the postmodern reality, renewal of faith is possible as individuals’ experience of the ineradicable value of their souls and assumptions of absolute responsibility, but it is not in the cards to return to a perfect faith that includes divine providence and governance from above or within history. On this point, I go back and rely on the distinction between coping with the problem of everyday evil—death, pain, sickness, injustice, and the accidents of nature, which every individual encounters on the plane of his existence as a natural bodily creature—and grappling with the malicious moral evil that is manifest on the historical plane. If we examine the history of theoretically dealing with the problem of evil of the first kind, from Job to our day, we may discover to our surprise that despite the differences in manner of expression, in concepts and thought-methods, no substantive change in the thought-content has occurred. It stands to reason that man’s primal experience as a natural bodily creature has not changed through cultural history, and so the faith-response rooted in primal life experience, in man’s perceiving his conscious “I” as an embodied soul and as an ensouled body, as well as his clear sense that the body and soul are a gratuitous gift intended for good, has not changed in principle, nor has any reason been discovered why it must change. It remains valid and clear as an absolute subjective stance but also as a communicable insight, open to objective understanding. We shall not deny, of course, that there is an indissoluble connection between experience that maintains and reinforces faith in the plane of man’s existence as a natural bodily creature and his experience in the social and historical plane. The individual who has a positive experience of life and takes the gift of conscious life as a divine grace will naturally expect the same beneficent tendency to be manifest in all areas of his life. Thus, when he encounters malicious evil of the oppressive and murderous variety, his faith is on the verge of being shattered. But at the same time, he continues to experience the gratuitous gift of his life as a part of nature surrounding him, despite the most extreme historical calamities. More- over, the voice of God addressing him from within his soul guides and commands him. He still hears it within him, even in the hardest hours of faith confronting the experiences of our age 91 evil’s triumph over human society. If he continues to listen for the voice, he continues to hear it. This is the simplest and most understandable reason for the fact that believers continued to feel the soul-felt intimacy of God’s presence even in the hardest times of their lives, even during the Holocaust. Indeed, there were individuals for whom faith in this intimate inner sense stirred and awakened in them and caught fire with amazing force precisely during the Holocaust, and even more so after it. We have, then, experience that is influenced by events occurring in the historical plane but not determined by them. There is no doubt but that it will persist. It will return and renew itself in every generation before the traumas of history, during them, and after them. Whoever is open to this experience by virtue of his profound experience of his place in the world as a human being will therefore find no difficulty in repeating the simple, clear, and sober words of the Modim, the thanksgiving paragraph in the thrice-daily basic prayer, the Shemoneh Esreh: “You are our God in every generation. We give thanks to You and declare Your praise for our lives committed in Your hands, and for our souls entrusted to You, for Your miracles and beneficences that are present at every time, evening, morning, and noon.” He will not find any difficulty, either, in uttering the words of the first blessings of the Shema sequence, including “Abounding Love,” for the divine love mentioned here is the voice heard within the Torah tradition, which is reaffirmed in the depth of the person’s soul who hears God’s voice within him, enjoin- ing patterns of living that will, if one is obedient to them and observant of them, maintain in actuality a life-existence that is love. It is possible to re-experience this at any time, any moment, even in the most challenging historical times. It is possible to draw strength from them even amid the struggle for historical realization. But when we turn to the plane of the historical realization of the commands expressing faith, there is laid bare before us a path of crises, each more disappointing and shocking than the previous, until the people arrive at the unprecedented nadir of the Holocaust. We must acknowledge that the Holocaust turned belief in the divine governance of history, in every possible way of interpretation, into a complete absurdity. It contradicted either God’s righteousness, or God’s governance over history, or both together. There is no escaping the admission that whoever recoils from attributing an event such as the Holocaust to an intentional divine decision actively attests—even through his extenuations—that faith in divine providence in history has lost for him the last shred of empirical credibility. This is without any doubt a profound crisis, which believers 92 eliezer schweid must acknowledge to themselves and to others. Their faith is not whole, and there is no way to bring it back to wholeness without betraying something of its substantive implications, for as we said, the expectation of divine providence in history is rooted in the ethical foundation of faith. For this reason, believers of our time can indeed understand with deep empathy the faith of their predecessors in a saving and redeeming divine providence. They yearn for it themselves, and they can well understand how and why there was more credibility to the confidence in God’s direct intervention in history in ages in which the supremacy of organized humanity over knowledge, technology, and administration was less than it is today. When the sovereign power of the countries of organized humanity to realize interests that it freely defined and chose, whether from good or bad intention, was partial and easily defeated by the opposition of various factors, often unanticipated, and by the objective circumstances of life, then the feeling that nations’ fates were dependent much less on the choices of their rulers, their sagacity and calculations, and so much more on external circumstances of unanticipated fate that could be attributed to divine intervention or the immanent pattern of history was much greater than it is today. This was part of the larger sense of reality. It was difficult even then to explain the fatality of history in keeping with an ethical-purposive causality. It was a stretch, and needless to say there was no consensus among the sages and rulers of the people with respect to the proper religious explanation of the twists and turns of historical events. Thus already in ancient times it was necessary to devise deeper understandings of faith in order to reconcile its moral assumptions with the facts. But in retrospective reflection on the totality of historical memory, in which the people struggled to understand its meaning and lessons, it was possible to bring the lesson rooted in the faith and morality of providence closer in line with a sense of realistic orientation. That being the case, the sober disillusionment in faith in providence does not necessarily bring about loss of credence in its sources. Moreover, it does not necessarily cause loss of identification with the expectation expressed in the sources and with the religious-ethical value embodied in it. Even in the depth of painful sobriety, a whole faith—or a gradually sobered one, which modern believers find in the sources—embodies their assent and longings of what ought to be according to their better lights. The faith of the ancients speaks to their heart. It is still apt to express faithfully their longings in their prayers. Perhaps it has also the power to strengthen their sense of responsibility to act according to the Torah’s faith confronting the experiences of our age 93 imperatives, especially when the same reality that shattered their faith in divine providence enhanced their sense of its indispensability. But faith demands recognition of objective reality. It forbids one to indulge in illusions and distortions of historical reality. If it is the desire of believers not to lose all influence over history, they must recognize it, together with their contemporaries as they experience it. For that reason, there is no escape from acknowledging the imperfection of faith in our age, and there is no escaping the intellectual and practical conclusions that follow from this acknowledgement. I endorse the conclusion of those believers who consider it obligatory to take on the responsibility of mending the world in order to remedy through their action the deficiency of divine providence. But if what is needed here is not emotional rhetoric but deeds, then a realistic appraisal of the situation needs to guide the believers here as well. They have to appraise correctly the limitations of their ability and to limit their expectations of what their deeds can achieve. There is no chance that they will achieve an immediate result or a perfect result. At best, they may succeed in enabling the positive forces that act in their people’s history to prevail somewhat over the negative forces and factors. They may fix one corner of the social life and political morality, while securing for their people—and through them, for humanity—yet another chance to progress in the desired ethical direction. But by setting proper limits, they will arrive at the right conclusion: the absolute responsibility that believers take on themselves and their sober hope that they may have a hand in saving organized humanity from the danger of self-inflicted catastrophe and in improving the moral quality of their lives are the sole supports remaining for ethical action in history. If so, then hope still remains. What is its source? On what is it based? If we seek to answer from direct self-examination, we shall be forced to acknowledge that its support from historical experience of the past and future is meager. So many human attempts at mending the world have gone up in smoke, and many have caused more harm than good. It follows that hope relies completely on the future, and if it has a source in the present it is in the self-same affirmative will of life rooted in the existential feeling and evaluation from which faith is born. In other words: hope as a self-sufficient power of life is a kind of faith, apt to derive, from the hidden network of the energy of life and creativity embodied in humankind, forces unknown to him, whose source—like his life, like his soul—is in the supernal source that bestowed them. Feeling the hidden yet present connection with this source is the foundation for the undying hope of 94 eliezer schweid creating something new that should be in the future, which was not yet revealed either in the past or in the present. Hope is thus also a feeling that has no support from outside but is totally certain from within, that a person can look to for help from beyond him-or-herself if he has used up all the powers at his disposal—and more. In this way, hope for mending the world is indeed the last remaining alternative to faith in divine providence manifested in history. It may be permitted to see in it the kernel of existential truth, stubborn and obstinate, from which this faith made a comeback and was renewed despite all its failures. The kernel is always the hope rooted in the extra measure of strength that the believing person found in him-or-herself when one went out to perform an act of repair and renewal, an act that pushed human history in the ethical direction despite one’s clear knowledge that this was not the direction in which it was tending according to the forces of human gravity operating within it. One knew when one set out that one would not succeed unless, in the course of his activity, a power would be found that one still lacked, but a power that one needed and wanted, a power that one had to “borrow,” as it were, from the future in order to begin one’s activity— if one found it, indeed, at the end. If one was convinced of the decisive contribution of this power at the moment of marvelous attainment, one knew that it was not by one’s power or the might of one’s hand that one achieved what one achieved but by virtue of the spirit that was added from that other source. The moments of achievement are rare. But nevertheless there are such historical moments, such as the liberation of the people of Israel from the house of bondage at the start of its career as a nation, which became for our people an example of the fulfillment of a promise and an inexhaustible source of hope for the future. Another such moment was the establishment of the State of Israel from the stubborn creative efforts of believing Jews over the course of three generations. When moments like these occur, they are experienced as a true miracle, that is to say, the revelation of an unanticipated power from beyond that was added to the power of the actors and enabled them to succeed in their effort: to establish it and perpetuate it not just for the sake of the present but for the sake of the future. Those who were fortunate enough to experience such moments know with absolute certainty that, by virtue of the deeds of faith by which they were aided and established, humanity still exists, and the people of Israel still exist and stand in its midst. They know that the goal is not achieved without monumental human efforts, not only through human’s powers but also by the power of their faith and hope, which are faith confronting the experiences of our age 95 marvelous powers added to their own powers from a transcendent source. That transcendent source is what allowed the project to succeed, and it is the only guarantee that it will survive into the future. From the power of hope, which leads them in their activity, even the believers of our age, who have despaired of the providence that is manifest above history or within it, can say in their prayers the closing words of Psalm 90, attributed to Moses, the “man of God,” the man who knew his strength but was humblest of all human beings, who sought to reveal and establish through his project the providence of God in the midst of his people. To a marvelous extent, which can stand as an example to many generations, he accomplished this and succeeded: “May Your works appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children. May the pleasantness of the Lord our God be manifest to us. O establish for us the work of our hands! The work of our hands—establish it.” Today we can only pray that the works of our hands will enjoy establishment and permanence.

Humanism, Globalization, Postmodernism, and the Jewish People*

Eliezer Schweid

The End of the Age of Humanism—The Beginning of the Age of Post-Humanism

World War II marks the end of the age of the effort for humanism’s practical consummation for Western countries (including the victorious United States), while the Holocaust is the corresponding historical marker for the Jewish people. The unequivocal failure of the humanistic project was visible already after World War I. Even then it had become clear in effect that the struggle for realizing the various kinds of humanistic utopias had no chance of success. Behind the deceptive façade of the inner law of progress in the history of Western civilization, an opposite dialectical inner law had been uncovered. On the one hand, one could see rapid progress in science and technology, which empowered those nations that had taken possession of its fruits and skillfully exploited them by interven- ing ever more effectively in nature in order to extract ever greater material advantages from it. On the other hand, one saw rapid retreat from realization of humanism’s ethical ideals, whether personal, social, or political. In the short term the achievements of science and innovative technology yielded great advantages in terms of material and bodily comforts of life for an ever-increasing segment of humanity. But in the long run these achievements served people’s inherent evil tendencies, especially on the collective scale. Nations used their acquired material advantages to serve their aggrandizement, at the cost of those weaker than themselves, as well as at the cost of the welfare of their own citizens, in whose name they ruled. Thus they advanced the processes of human self-destruction. This was a complex dialectic, for one cannot ignore the arousal of the humanistic responses of those who foresaw the danger, tried to prevent it, and made impressive displays of fidelity to the virtues of justice, phi- lanthropy, and love, which are also part of the nature of human beings, who are social by nature. But the chance that these individuals and

* Originally published in Eliezer Schweid, Massot gordoniyot ḥadashot (New Gordonian Essays) (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Me’uḥad, 2005), 11–69. 98 eliezer schweid movements could come to power while remaining dedicated to the realization of their humanistic ideals, went on shrinking in direct proportion to the increase of scientific and technological power. Creation of scientific and technological power is dependent on finan- cial investments that only nation-states can provide. Of course, then, its growth served primarily the ruling institutions of the state and its agents, who were mainly interested in exercising power itself, which for them was a good embracing all other human goods. This was practically a scientific proof that ruling power was at bottom a function of human egotism as manifested in the collective life that depended on it. The people needed rule in order to live, but the ruling classes lived in order to rule. More- over, to the extent that simple citizens had a share in rule, which they served in order that it should serve them, they too lived in order to rule and attributed to their participation in rule a significance that tended to overshadow their other interests. This is the secret of the flourishing of totalitarian regimes, which may be regarded as pure specimens of the will- to-power for its own sake. From this followed the unflagging pressure of such regimes—with the assent of the peoples whom the represented—to conquer, to enslave and exploit other countries and other peoples. This is the only way to make good the promise that the power-driven regime makes to the people in whose name it rules, namely that they will benefit through ruling other peoples and through all the material advantages inherent in this rule. Therefore it will be good for the people if they display readiness to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the ruling state. This is the dialectical logic that led, step by step, to great material achievements in the short run, but to ultimate destruction in the long run. The period between the two world wars proved that this was the inner law governing the course of these scientifically and technologically advanced civilizations. This was especially the case with the depraved movements—Communism and Fascism—that held power in several important European countries. But it held true to some extent also of the militant national liberalism that built up its power through conquest and imperialistic exploitation. Together, these movements started the two world wars, in order to gain rule over the entire world. For this purpose, they had to destroy each other—and in the process, destroy themselves, whether as military and political victors or vanquished, for the destruction wreaked havoc on victors and vanquished alike. This was the final result of World War II. All the nations that participated in it suffered, in varying degrees—but all unprecedented—in loss of life, bodily injury, psychological damage, loss of property and sources of humanism, globalization, postmodernism 99 subsistence. The only ones who could be counted victors were the social classes who controlled the wealth necessary for investment or who had the requisite scientific and technological knowledge. Among nations, only the United States could be counted victorious, for it grew in wealth, science, and technology more than any other country; moreover, the war was not fought on its land, and so its civilization did not suffer direct damage. This meant that in Europe, all that survived was scientific and technological knowledge, as well as the lessons that the leading elite drew from the consequences of the war. In order to reconstruct the peoples and the shattered civilizations, it was necessary to draw on all the resources of science and technology, which had proved their effectiveness through the unprecedented magnitude of destruction they had caused in the war. This time, of course, they would be used for positive needs of development, in contrast to how they had been used by both the liberal and anti-liberal movements in the past. Beyond humanism and anti-humanism—“beyond good and evil”—they had to find the most effective way to provide generously for the basic needs that all human beings have in common by virtue of their humanity, and for whose achievement they therefore compete as individuals and as groups. We have arrived here at the principle that was the basis of the alternative way. The competitive urge rooted in human nature—to attain more (and in better quality) for the satisfaction of these basic needs, including the material power expressed in influence and rule—must be converted from a cause of conflicts that disrupt the productive process into a cause of variety, multiplicity, and growth, through cooperation by way of mutual exploitation and decentralizing the foci of power that balance each other. This innovative-yet-continuous way of thinking was defined in value- neutral, “post-modern” terms. But its evaluative significance was reflected by reducing the subjective value into quasi-objective terminology. The old “modernity” was the proclamation of faith in qualitative and quantitative ethical progress. By contrast, “post-modernity” was the proclamation of faith in qualitative and quantitative progress with respect to rank, variety, and utility; these could be measured quantitatively but not from an ethical perspective, which was subjective and therefore not measurable. It followed from this that its norms must be defined not by a theory based on the demands of the “ought” or the “ideal,” but by means of a theory based on the “is” or the “pragmatic”—whether one is talking of natural resources and who effectively owns them, or about one’s own talent as a spiritual faculty, innate or acquired by human beings, as informing their actual conduct. 100 eliezer schweid

Scientific and Technological Fundamentalism in Postmodernism

The Soviet Union was victorious in World War II, to her detriment. Her military and political achievement enabled the Stalinist dictatorship, which strove for world power, to survive for the better part of the second half of the twentieth century. The regime intensified the methods of oppression that it had adopted in order to contend with the achievements of the liberal Western nations. The United States, leader of the Free World countries, won to its advantage. Together with the countries that followed its example, it was ready and able to change the infrastructure of its industrial civilization, the institutions of government that were needed for its effective functioning, and its moral and judicial values. From the perspective of the academic elite who were needed to play the key roles in developing the science, technology, and management methods (including institutional and judicial changes) to implement the lessons of the world war, a new course of action began with declaring war on the failed ideologies of yesteryear. The criticisms were nothing new, for these ideologies had disagreed with each other and effectively refuted each other already before the war. They represented themselves in this way as quasi-rationalistic alternate versions of a messianic religion. The new element after the war was a fundamentalistic rejection of ideology itself as a way of thinking based on subjective philosophy, instead of directly on objective nature. The ideological aspect that stood out in this new turn of thought was expressed dialectically as “anti-ideology.” As such, this anti-ideology characterized the dialectical thinking of earlier modern philosophy, which sought to unite the sciences in a comprehensive method, as scientifically unaccept- able. The only way to utilize the conclusions of all the sciences is to set them side by side, compare them and set forth ideas that will be more beneficial and less harmful, to the extent possible, on the assumption that no advance is without its harmful side-effects, but these can be corrected down the road, or at least reduced to negligible proportions, which will be outweighed by the magnitude of the other achievements. Instead of being guided by the “modern” philosophy and ideology, which is interested in norms of the “ought,” which cannot be determined except from the subjective interests of individuals, groups, classes, parties, and nations, one looked now for objective scientific guidance, which weighs the common interests of all human beings, which can be defined objectively. For this purpose one needed a reform in the social sciences. Before the war, they based the sciences on positivistic philosophy, which humanism, globalization, postmodernism 101 also confronted the “is” with the “ought” and defined the ought on the basis of culture and tradition; whereas after the war, in place of positivist philosophy one needed a theory reflecting scholarly practice that determined the objective “is.” We will speak later about the substance of the turn that took place in the social sciences, and the connection between it and the ideologies of the kind that had become obsolete. At this stage, we point out that the turning against philosophy and against ideology also required a philosophical basis, which identified with the new scientific practice. It represented itself as a meta-scientific rather than a philosophical theory. But this was not entirely new either. The founders of reform in the social and psychological sciences returned to the argument, which is fundamentalist from a scientific perspective, of historical materialism. Like it, they sought to base progress on the development of material civilization, not on a spiritual-cultural renaissance, but by defining utility in the inherent terms of civilization itself. (As for instance by asking questions like: “What is good for its advancement as a totality of utilitarian functions?”) They drew directly from the basic givens that gave rise to the civilization itself—the resources of the world, and the capacities of human knowledge and action. We recall in this connection that this was the argument of historical materialism. The Marxist discipline also demanded abolition of philosophy (as ideology) and exchanged it for scientific praxis, while declaring the assumption that social existence determines consciousness, not the other way around. The reform that took place within the social scientific disciplines, in parallel to the natural sciences, by adapting them to their respective realities, thus returned to a kind of causal-deterministic Marxist fundamentalism, which authorized only one correct conclusion. Obviously, in order to reapply these fundamentalistic theoretical assumptions to the current situation, one needed to mount a stringent critical examination of the misguided Marxist ideologies that had given rise to failed totalitarian regimes, in order to draw the correct conclusions, relevant to the present conditions after the war. We shall discuss this critique and these conclusions later, but it is fitting to summarize the significance of this turn of thought on the materialist-historical axis: 1. the “post-modern” period shook loose of the humanistic Renaissance, which had striven for continuity with respect to shaping the identities of developing cultures on the basis of their sources. According to the latest fashion, the opposite was the case: every norm, every belief, every ethical truth, every institution should be examined by the yardstick of functional 102 eliezer schweid

utility in the present. It followed that the memory of the past in itself was not a value, certainly not an obligatory value. One had to reexamine it impartially, to see if it was valid or not. 2. on this basis, one had to forgo the definition of progress as development, and the dialectic as a necessary method for researching the inner law of development in the direction of progress. Only considerations of utility in the present, based on precise measurement, would be considered relevant for decisions concerning the right policy, which would be evaluated according to its results. 3. one should only build on a firm, bedrock foundation. Thus, localizing the data and defining day-to-day needs in advance (as much as one could anticipate tomorrow’s needs with precision today) was an absolute truth from which one should never deviate. Adding other considerations, which did not proceed from scientific discipline, such as considerations of ethics and a vision of an ideal future, had a subjective tendency, and was thus disqualified as misguided ideology. One did not need a lot of sophistication to see that this argument was itself ideological, and as such fundamentalistic. That is to say, it sets forth unequivocal assumptions to which it relates as necessary objective realities—as long as they are not refuted by other scientific tools—in order to build on them an established bureaucratic technocratic system, drawing unquestioned authority from the claim of the objectivity of its functioning. Indeed, in this respect it enjoyed the same status as religion, which spoke in the name of revealed truth; it was not imposing itself, God forbid, but the demonstrated truth that it pointed out compelled obedience, even if it involved suffering. Therefore it had immediate influence not only on the political establishment that ruled the country, but also on spiritual-intellectual movements—particularly religious ones—which of course were free to exist as they wished in the liberal society, as long as they did not impose themselves or compete with the authority of the state. But from their side, they could not accept the authority of the secular sciences. The result was the countervailing development of religious fundamentalism. The movements that subscribe to the postmodern outlook, out of sincere belief that it embodied human progress, argue that religious fundamentalism is a fossilized survival from the previous period, and so they are ready to make their peace with it until it withers away of its own accord. But a historical perspective indicates that religious fundamentalism is a mirror image of scientific and technological fundamentalism. The evidence for this is that religious fundamentalism shows impressive skill in deploying the achievements of science and technology against postmodern civilization itself. This is a sign that the postmodernist anti-ideology has nursed humanism, globalization, postmodernism 103 in its bosom an ideology that it seeks to sell—as did Marxism in the first half of the twentieth century—as science.

The Revolution in the Social Sciences, and Its Implications

The primary ideological mistake of Marxism, from the perspective of the postmodern social sciences, is found in the assumption that the good of individuals, with respect to satisfying their life-needs, is subordinate to the good of the collective in whose rubric are conducted the processes of production and services that support and sustain them. In other words, according to a Marxist perspective (but also according to the outlook of classic national liberalism), individuals must serve the general good in order to insure their own good as individuals. This is a norm of the “ought” that individuals must accept, out of realization of its necessity for their own good—of course, on the basis of the expectation that the collective that is thereby benefited will define its own goals for the benefit of its benefactors, who are its members. Precedence of the general good as a condition of the individual good is thus predicated on the identity of the vital interests of all individuals as living creatures, and on the dependence of their life-needs on the collectivity, for only it, as an entity greater than the sum of its parts, can comprise and activate the civilization as an organized unity. Only it exercises ownership over the necessary natural resources; only it exercises ownership over the civilization as an assemblage of productive capacities and services; only it can organize and manage processes of production and marketing in a rational way; only it can take responsibility for distribution that will equitably reward individuals for their investment and insure cooperation by preventing conflicts and mediating opposing interests. The postmodern social sciences do not disagree about the assumed connection between the collective and individual good. They do dispute the assumption that the collective is “more” than the sum of its parts, and that one can posit a “collective good” apart from the good of the individuals that voluntarily comprise it, on condition that it will benefit them. On this basis they also dispute the precedence of the collective good as a condition of the good of its members. In their view, the relation should be reversed: the good of the individuals takes priority, for in it is rooted their motivation to unite and function together. The postmodernists agree with the assumption that the vital needs of all people, as living creatures, are essentially identical, and that a certain level of satisfaction is necessary to each individual, in a minimally egalitarian fashion. But observation of 104 eliezer schweid social human nature also teaches, in their view, that along with this equality in the will to survive and their life needs goes a striking inequality in their talents and their functional and creative abilities. Human individuals are not equal in their power and ability to find, control, and exploit the natural resources around them. They are not equal in their ability to modify these resources and to extract from them a useful product. Nor are they equal in their talents of leadership or their ability to occupy a place in the power hierarchy that directs the civilization in its planning, organization, direction, and governance. Thus, they are not equal in the recompense that they should get in order to perform their tasks, whether for their investment or for the motivation to fulfill them. Is the tension between equality and inequality an obstacle to orderly and stable social existence? Does it constitute an obstacle to the processes of material production and spiritual creativity? The answer that comes from the investigations of the new social scientists is that inequality on the basis of equality generates conflicts that are liable to destroy a civilization after its first stages of success. Nevertheless, this tension also constitutes the essential human superiority over other species—talent, ability, the urge to increase, vary, improve, and perfect the modes of material production and spiritual creativity. The conclusion that follows from this is thus that the establishment, functioning, and advancement of material civilization and intellectual culture are conditional on a rational approach that will harness the competitive tension embodied in such inequality for a positive purpose, to channel this competitive tension into productive striving for excellence in all these endeavors. This will serve both those areas of needs in which human beings are all equal, and those areas in which they are unequal, through ever increasing abundance. In other words: One must seek the social and political formula that will convert egoism from a conflictual, antisocial factor into a positive competitive spur to achievement. Such a formula must combine, in the proper proportions, on the one hand limitless freedom to realize the capacities of production and creativity to their fullest, for the satisfaction of the desires for enjoyment, influence, and power, and on the other hand an effective framework of laws and rules that will prevent infringing on the equal rights of all members of the society to realize their abilities in similar manner to the same goals. Observation of behavioral psychology of the majority of people teaches, according to this view, that they do not sense any contradiction between the freedom to compete and the rules against cheating. On the contrary. Most of the competitors are interested in defending themselves against humanism, globalization, postmodernism 105 any cheating that could cause harm in the proper course of production, and they are ready to pay for the advantage of this freedom by refraining from antisocial behavior from the outset, even if in the short run they could reap increased profits from it. On the other hand, they sense a contradiction between the freedom to compete and the imposition of an obligation to limit competition by taking on responsibility for the other against whom they are competing, as would be required by the teachings of traditional morality and humanistic or religious legal systems. The conclusion is clear: one should rigorously enforce laws against cheating, while absolving the competitor, and the general collective, of any responsibility for the economic and social prosperity of the other competitors. Whether they succeed or fail in their efforts, they can blame only themselves for their bad luck. It is thus clear that the doctrine of the precedence of the individual good over the collective good is opposed to the principle of distributive justice that Marxism advocated. From the standpoint of postmodern social science, egalitarian distributive justice is a kind of idealistic moral “ought” that is incompatible with man’s egoistic competitive nature. That being the case, any effort to apply it will hamper superior talented individuals, who contribute to the collective, and will thus hamper the collective even from providing the minimum necessary for all individuals in order to survive and maintain their group in dignity. If so, the recommended course is the opposite: encourage the competitive urge of individuals to contribute the best of their talents and abilities to themselves, and thus to the collective, through a proportionate reward, which should be determined in accord with the value that the collective (which is an assemblage of individuals) attributes to their product. How? Clearly, not by top-down fiat, nor by predetermined norms, as egalitarian Marxism would prescribe, but by dynamic allocation, which is determined directly by the forces of the marketplace, namely, by the continually changing equilibrium of supply and demand. One assumes that this equilibrium is an objective process. In nature, it is carried out automatically by rules that were uncovered by Darwinian theory, but in industrial civilization one must supervise them so they do not get out of hand. For this purpose one needs a governing institution— the state—which possesses the means of legislative sanctions and enforcement. Certainly the producers and buyers of their products must finance the legislative and enforcement apparatus and compensate them through their taxes, just as they must pay for any service that is vital for production and marketing. But one must again emphasize: it is impermissible that 106 eliezer schweid this legislation and enforcement, entrusted to the chosen representatives of the collective, should interfere with the competitive process of production itself. At this stage, an additional problem rears its head: Doesn’t the need to balance competitive freedom of individuals against the laws imposed by the collective bring in, through the back door, the moral obligation toward the collective, and thereby toward the fellow-person, that one sought to exclude? In other words: doesn’t the train of ideas just suggested constitute in effect an ideology that is the opposite of the Marxist ideology, namely one that serves to protect the stronger, victorious competitors, rather than objective science? To me, it appears that the answer to this question is yes. But the theoretician, claiming to be scientific, would answer: First, the moral norms that prefer the individual good to the collective good agree with the natural tendencies of most people. Second, these norms do not derive from a reason that requires all people to transcend their egoism and to compete for the sake of moral perfection, but they derive from practical reason directed at the satisfaction of natural desires that all persons possess equally. If they have normative implications of the status of an ought, this is because in industrial civilization, which people create voluntarily and methodically, one must define the necessary principles for proper social relations, and even to impose them on the minority who are tempted to transgress them. From this follows the principal difference between the humanistic definition of social ethics and the postmodern liberal definition: not justice or compassion, but what is “appropriate.” The standard of propriety is understood as fidelity to the rules of fair competition, as long as competition itself is not limited, while disallowing any advantage that does not follow from the process of production and marketing itself, but from the intervention of external factors. Appropriate conduct is relative, and it is possible to identify it more clearly and determine its existence or infringe- ment through objective judicial criteria. Justice, on the other hand, is an absolute concept, and for that reason there are no objective criteria by which one can define its application. Here are the five primary principles of propriety in the area of competitive production: (a) The principle of equal opportunity, provided to every person on the basis of his relevant abilities. (b) The principle of equal reward for equal work. (c) The principle of equal price for equal merchandise. (d) Prohibiting cartels that allow monopolistic control of the market. (e) Preventing attempts to change the results of the competition through social or political, rather than economic considerations. humanism, globalization, postmodernism 107

Does it follow, from all said here, that behavioral psychology ignores feelings of justice, compassion, mercy, and interpersonal love? Does it follow that people do not need love, mercy, responsibility, or acting for justice? It would be very bad for a scientific theory to ignore such data. It would be very bad to ignore feelings of loneliness, alienation, deprivation and hatred, which could result from the failures of competition. But this scientific theory focuses on the processes of production and creativity themselves. It excludes such feelings as these from the competition itself, in order not to distort its causal logic and fairness. In the last analysis, one can argue that distorting the logic of objective processes, whose goal is to increase prosperity, harms also the losers of the competition, or those who are not able to take part in it. The conclusion is offered that these exalted feelings that are a part of human nature should be realized in the context of family and community, outside the cycle of production and consumption, in which only the norms of efficiency and effectiveness of the marketplace should have application. We note that the conclusion that follows from this theory is that the norms that apply to a person’s natural conduct within the family and community are in the category of ethical precepts, which cannot be subject to formal legislation. As they are rooted in a human being’s compassionate nature, it is recommended that they be carried out voluntarily. But on second thought, it is possible to construct a secondary marketing apparatus for benevolent acts, with the aid of incentives that will be compensated through feelings and expressions of acknowledgment, appreciation, honor, and approbation, and even by funding aides who will make a respectable living by encouraging deeds of justice and kindness, and acting as go-betweens between benefactors and beneficiaries. Thus one can create a “marketplace of good deeds” in parallel with the marketplace of profits. In this context, let us not forget the economic consideration that incentivizes the creation of such a market: good deeds contribute to preventing the buildup of feelings of frustration and rage of people who see themselves as deprived and apt to avenge themselves on the whole establishment of production and marketing through criminal activity. On this basis, we can describe the substance of the change that occurs with the ideology identified with the methodological praxis of postmodern social sciences—sociology, economics, psychology, management theory, jurisprudence, and political science. All of them are divorced, at least apparently, from a philosophical foundation providing a general outlook of the status of man in nature, the meaning of his existence and his destiny. They are wedded, rather—like the natural sciences—to 108 eliezer schweid experiential-based methodologies, using tools appropriate for measuring human behavior. In other words: The postmodern human sciences do not deal with philosophical questions such as the “essence” of human nature, society, or civilization, just as the natural sciences do not deal with the “essence” of nature and its creatures or their “destiny,” but rather limit themselves to measuring the behaviors of human beings in interpersonal situations (psychology), collective social settings (sociology), private economic settings (business management), organizational settings (planning and administration), legal settings (jurisprudence and law), and political situations (political science). The common denominator is measuring human behaviors in statistical methods—but with consistency, through successive measurements, tracking the dynamic of change and development. By comparing successive measurements one can derive rules of prediction for the results of proposed actions, such as are to be desired or avoided, and so one can shape economic or social policies whose goals are a quantitative, qualitative, or variable effect, in response to the needs of people who have an interest in them, and also to get feedback according to which one can correct and improve production and marketing through achieving improvement or avoiding harm. We can assess the ideological significance of this scientific methodology, in comparison with the humanistic approach to the study of mankind, by taking a look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, promulgated shortly after World War II. This basic law assumes that all human beings are born with dignity, that this dignity is identified with their very existence as human beings, that they are entitled to life, liberty, and happiness. But what promises them this in actuality, with respect to the institutions responsible for its enforcement? The formulations in the Declaration itself are cast in a negative, rather than a positive form. It is forbidden to violate them without a compelling reason—a reason such as intervention that is a clear and present danger to the existence of all members of the community, or the natural rights of specified individuals. But there is no obligation incumbent on the institutions of the society and state, or on individuals in direct relation with each other, to take care that all members of the society should succeed in realizing the rights endowed on them, or to enjoy them in actuality. In this respect, the unequivocal principle is: “If I am not for me, who is for me?” with the implication, “If I have no property, what am I?” But for understanding the nuance of the spiritual rubric that the postmodernist social sciences construct (with the encouragement and intention as an effective intermediary for moving the competitive wheels of production and marketing), one should pay humanism, globalization, postmodernism 109 attention to the social-psychological meaning of subordinating the general good as a means to the good of the individual, rather than the reverse. This question relates in fact to the form of organization of the psycho- physical forces that comprise the personality of individuals, out of their natural striving for happiness. According to the humanistic outlook, which defines happiness in terms of bodily health and perfection of the moral virtues—whose source is in positive feelings—and spiritual perfection, with respect to knowing the truth about the world and about man in the world, one sees the instinctual forces that motivate one to the struggle for survival in nature as the psycho-physical kernel that constructs the “I.” Still, one relates to this ensemble as a means for developing man’s emotional, esthetic, and intellectual-rational capacities by internalizing values, acquiring knowledge, and adopting skills from the stores of collective culture transmitted from generation to generation. By virtue of culture’s collective power, it is presumed to be an entity that contains more than the sum of its parts. According to this conception, happiness is to be identified with the creativity that actualizes these talents and abilities, which are the components of the individual personality. The faculties of the instinctual “I” and their satisfaction through rewards are conceived in this approach as necessary prerequisites to existence and happiness, but they are not identified with human existence, much less with human happiness itself. By contrast, according to the ideology of the new social sciences, the instinctual forces, the consciousness of which is the primal psycho-physical kernel of the personality, are conceived as an objective whose achievement is identified with happiness, whereas one’s talents, abilities, values, and education are the means through which individuals can compete with each other for abundance of rewards, expressing values of sensory, emotional, and intellectual pleasures. The social-political regime based on post-modern civilization defines itself as “liberal” and its ethic as “individualistic.” But these definitions turn the humanistic understanding of these two concepts upside-down. From a humanistic point of view, an ethic that sets the psycho-physical self as the ultimate goal is to be defined as “egoistic,” not as “individualistic.” Furthermore, from the humanistic viewpoint—one that defines individualism by concepts of autonomy and bearing responsibility for the fellow- person and for society—cultivating the instinctual self as a goal is the opposite of individualism. This applies also to the stance which individuals adopt vis-à-vis the expectations of the other and the collective. People who have incorporated the egoistic approach learn to evaluate themselves 110 eliezer schweid and their achievements only by comparison with the actions, achievements, and rewards of their competitors. Only through such comparison do they find meaning in their lives. This means that as far as their lifestyle, tastes, and views are concerned, they are not inclined to spiritual absorption and self-development and are not capable of it. Their dependence on competitors, whom they seek to vanquish through more numerous and qualitative achievements in the same profession and creative area, forces them to an imitative excellence, that will arouse in their competitors and beneficiaries feelings of admiration that they crave, in order to confirm and reinforce their self-image. The same applies to shaping their views on social, political, and cultural matters: in order to earn appreciation for professional excellence, they must hold the view regarded as “politically correct”—with more sophisticated articulation if possible, though without revising the consensual outlook. In effect, though not by intention, this imposes an even stronger dependence on the collective than in the case of those who see the collective as an autonomous group entity on whose heritage they draw in order to shape their values, tastes, and independent views. This reversal uncovers a dialectic, hidden from the non-dialectical view of the postmodern social sciences, of the development of Western civilization from the mid-twentieth century onward, in the form of “globalization” based on the “free market economy.”

The Idea of “Globalization,” Its Application, and Its Primary Social and Political Implications for the Jewish People

The lessons derived from the destruction of modern civilization in World War II found application on the part of the liberal countries that survived it (including Western Germany, whose defeat redeemed it from the Nazi despotism, as well as Italy and Japan, whose defeat redeemed them from Fascist tyranny). This, in turn, led to successful application of the idea of “globalization” in two economic-political arenas, organized by two international economic institutions as “common markets” which enjoyed competitive tension on the basis of military, political, and economic cooperation. The idea of globalization as a general solution to the problem of wars between nation-states, competing with each other for raw materials, pools of cheap labor, and markets, and as a solution to the problem of violent class struggles, competing for the satisfaction of the same interests within each country and between countries, is not new. The French humanism, globalization, postmodernism 111

Revolution, which was national in its essence, strove to realize this idea through imperial world conquest. On the other hand, the Communist revolution developed its own version of universal “globalization,” based on an international league of countries dominated by a single class party. On closer examination, we find that the two-dimensional competitive clashes—the international clashes and the social clashes within nations— among competing empires, and even more so among different versions of globalization—are what generated the two world wars. The new factor in the idea of globalization (in its development and application) after World War II can be explained on this basis. The new globalization program was based on assumptions that were the opposite of those underlying the older imperialism, which was based on advancing the collective national good, as well as on those underlying communist internationalism, based on the collective good of the class party. It became clear that with respect to the problems of the hierarchical structure of each national society, and with respect to the comparison among sovereign nations, the solution that subordinated the total collective good to the egotism of individuals was preferable to the solution that subordinated the egotism of individuals to the egotism of the total collective. Why? Because it yielded a common denominator of competitive interests among all the individual citizens who comprised the various collectives—transcending class and national boundaries—in a way that could permit competitive collective action among the states and among the various social strata, that would increase prosperity and enable its distribution by criteria of “proper” rewards. This result, to be sure, was not egalitarian, but rather in accordance with the measure of objective power relations, of which the supreme authority was the market itself. It was clear that in order to apply the new idea of globalization, a revolutionary structural change was needed in the old world order and in the earlier modern pattern of social stratification. As to the world order, it was necessary to break up the empires that were based on military conquest and control, and to exchange them for hierarchical covenants among the nations that were “developed” in a scientific-technological and political sense, as well as the “undeveloped” nations—in other words, covenants based on relations of production. As to the “stratified social order,” among the developed nations it was necessary to dismantle the confrontation- based establishment of political parties and trade unions and transform it into a hierarchical establishment of relations among the various social classes, an establishment that would reflect the principles of the market economy, in order to satisfy the interests of individuals as individuals, not 112 eliezer schweid as members of a particular class, in keeping with the rewards that were “coming” to them according to the market value of their contribution. These changes would indeed be implemented with different degrees of consistency and different degrees of success because of the natural and historical inequality among different nations, especially with respect to their scientific-technological advancement. The empires based on conquest were dismantled, and in their place arose new nation-states, which formed relations of alliance (or protection) with the states that ruled them up until the Second World War. The political sovereignty of these nations was limited in two ways: the abolition of taxes on transfer of merchandise and the abolition of limits of travel or immigration of citizens from one state to another. In another respect, there was a change in the power relations between the political and military administration within the state as against the social and economic administration—both with respect to the distribution of the state budget raised from taxes, and with respect to the degree and form of centralization of control within the government—to the advantage of the social and economic administration. In this way, the dependence of the economy on politics, which was the case in the old- modern liberal regime, was exchanged for dependence of politics on the economy. With this background, one can apply with different degrees of consistency the principles of the “free market economy” that were described above. Of course, one should emphasize that all these changes were applied in the developed countries that benefited (1) from a higher level and continually accelerating increase of scientific and technological achievements; (2) from a broad array of institutions of research and instruction in the sciences and technology; (3) from a sufficiently broad stratum of people with scientific and technological education, from which came the researchers and inventors as well as their professional constituency; (4) from a large common denominator of Western cultural background, despite the difference in various national cultures and despite the history of hostilities they may have had in the past. In the undeveloped nations, which arose from the exploited territories of the former imperial powers, it was not possible to apply a single one of these changes. On the contrary. In these states, the ultranationalist tendency, which strove for absolute dominance, based on a large army and police force—whether public or secret—became more firmly entrenched. But the economies of these states could not train and equip these forces, and so they became client states, dependent on developed countries whose humanism, globalization, postmodernism 113 economy sufficed not only for their own needs but also for strengthening the regimes that had secured their interests in the former empires. The thinkers, planners, and implementers of the idea of globalization saw this contradiction between themselves and these client states, and understood its dangers. But the immediate advantage that grew out of applying the idea of globalization, including the change away from military conquest of the sources of natural resources, cheap labor, and broadened markets, seemed great enough and far more beneficial than the danger. With a reasonable degree of “scientific” optimism it was possible to anticipate that the countries of the “third world,” which stood between the “first world” (the United States and its allies) and the “second world” (the countries of Europe organized in the Common Market), would develop gradually, would achieve a rising standard with considerable encouragement from the developed nations, and then would be able to unite with the developed countries in an alliance of equals; the dangerous contradiction would be put to rest. The question, whether the “developed nations” indeed aspired for this to happen and were doing everything in their power to this end, was a respectable question, one that we will have to address later. But it was clear that the chance that countries that were poor and weak in scientific and technological know-how could be qualified to compete with developed countries that were rapidly developing further, and the chance that their despotic, corrupt regimes would be interested in that, seemed negligible from the start. In other words: on this issue, hope was more of a self-justifying ideological excuse than a well-grounded scientific theory. But in the first stage of reconstruction from the destruction of the war, the results that followed from applying the idea of globalization speedily answered all hopes, on a level that exceeded expectations. The civilizations that were destroyed in World War II were reconstituted with amazing speed, doubling and tripling the level of production in quality, variety, and extent. The motivation for advanced development and quick enrichment encouraged one scientific-technological revolution after another. Objectives in the areas of production, transportation, communication, and medicine that had been thought impossible in the old-modern period were now within easy reach of fulfillment. Optimism grew, because the extent of increased wealth and the breadth of the strata who benefited from it reinforced the “scientific” hope that with the help of appropriate investment and development it would be possible to solve all the moral, social, cultural, and political problems that had been generated 114 eliezer schweid on account of applying the principles of globalization. What would be required for this—such was the “scientific” hope—would be even more consistent and rigorous application of the principles of globalization and the free market.

Such optimism had beneficial repercussions for the Jewish people. Like all the other nations of Europe, it had to reconstruct itself, but from a destruction that exceeded in its frightful dimensions the destruction of the other peoples who participated in the war, and who bore responsibility in varying degrees for the unprecedented holocaust of the Jew- ish people. Two immediate repercussions of the dismantling of the old empires and applying the principles of globalization were very positive: first, the unique political constellation that was created in the Middle East, with the breakup of the empires and their being turned into areas of special protection of the powers that were victorious in the war, made possible the decision of the United Nations to establish the State of Israel, as well as the offer of protection of the developed Western nations for building it and setting it on a solid basis. This series of events highlighted the advantage of the Jewish people over the other peoples of the Middle East, inasmuch as it was a Western people that brought with it the cream of the scientific and technological capabilities that had been developed in the West. By virtue of them, the Jewish people succeeded in coping with the opposition of the Arab nations to establishing a Jewish and West- ern nation in their geopolitical sphere; by virtue of them they succeeded in maneuvering among the powers who contended for granting protection to the Arab nations in order to continue to benefit from their resources. For reasons that we shall discuss later, the State of Israel did not achieve immediate integration in the globalized world order, but it succeeded in developing a strong civilization, relative to its environment, in accordance with the pre-war modern national model. Thus it succeeded in achieving integration to a certain extent with the economic market of the United States and the European countries, to maneuver among them, and to enjoy limited protection from some of them. Second, the application of the principles of the Declaration of Human Rights in the judicial systems of the developed Western nations, civic individualism, and the individualistic competitive norms of the free market, freed Jews as individuals of the obstacles that had hampered the process of emancipation in the older modern world. Moreover, it became clear that in the new economic-social and political order Diaspora Jews enjoyed an advantage over other ethnic and religious groups, by virtue of the level humanism, globalization, postmodernism 115 of their education and ability to achieve integration in the scientific, technological, and administrative development in their countries, and by virtue of their identifying with the elite national culture in these countries. To be sure, anti-Semitism did not disappear in the countries of Europe, nor in the United States, but it became “individualized,” in the sense that it was now expressed only on the level of interpersonal relations, not in organized social and political forms that shaped policy. Diaspora Jews were thus able to exploit the advantage that they had on the basis of realizing “equal opportunity” in the liberal countries, and to arrive quickly into the upper percentiles, the wealthy and people of leading status in the developed Western countries. They prospered, strengthened their influence, and were able to reinforce their solidarity with the Jews of countries who still lived in conditions of extreme hardship (particularly in the Soviet Union), as well as with the State of Israel, by extending effective economic and political assistance, which was especially vital to the State of Israel in coping with the hard conditions of its initial establishment— absorption of mass immigration from impoverished lands not yet reached by globalization, developing a modern economy, housing, and its army. But the second result, in which we can see the price of achieving reconstruction from the Holocaust, was rapid assimilation. This followed from identifying with the individualistic-universalistic ethos of globalization, on whose basis Jews were able to climb to the upper strata of the society, which led the processes of globalization within and among the developed nations. We should nevertheless recall that under the conditions of the postmodern economic, social, political and cultural order, assimilation was presented not as a compulsory requirement on the part of the state or the general society, but as a free choice. Therefore, those who rejected assimilation for religious or ethnic reasons could hope that it was possible to cope with the danger of disappearance of the Jewish people in the Diaspora and to halt it through positive competition—that is to say, by increasing the attractive spiritual-cultural power of the religious and ethnic-cultural legacy, by strengthening ties of solidarity with Jewish groups, and particularly with the State of Israel, relying on the memory of the Holocaust and feeling the obligation to prevent its repetition.

The Dialectic of Developing Globalization

Signals of the negative dialectical results of the process of globalization and their implications for the Jewish people and its cultural-spiritual 116 eliezer schweid identity began already in the first decades of the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed, the State of Israel was delayed in joining the globalization process because of the necessity of preserving the patterns of its national and socialist ideology as long as it had not completed establishing itself as a nation-state, and as long as it was forced to absorb the massive waves of immigration through rapid economic, social, political, and cultural integration. However, after the victory of the Six-Day War, conditions were ripe for integration in the process of globalization, and it appeared necessary. In parallel fashion, the Soviet Union and its satellites underwent economic and political collapse, which was rightly seen as the unequivocal victory of globalization, leading to the sense that the countries of Europe had now completed the process of reconstruction from the destruction of the war, and from enthrallment to the processes that had caused such things in the past. The same period saw completion of the process of reconstitution of the Jewish people in Israel and in the Diaspora. But alongside the clarification of consciousness that the causes of the Second World War and of the Holocaust were now put to rest, it was impossible to conceal the manifestation of threats, perhaps no less dangerous, whose source was not in the depths of modernity’s past and the remnants of its political legacy, but in the costs of the successful implementation of globalization itself. Achievements seemed to surpass expectations, but one could not ignore the fact that the problems that ensued from the costs of these achievements also surpassed their negative expectations. Starting from the 1980s it was no longer possible to sweep under the carpet the grave dangers facing the world’s countries, no matter which “bloc” they belonged to. The source of the dangers was, on the one hand, the relations among the nations within the blocs, and between the blocs, and on the other hand the social, political, and cultural relations among strata, movements, and tendencies within each individual nation. The inherent nature of these processes forced the question, whether a more consistent continuation of the policy of globalization would lead to a solution of these accumulating stresses, or perhaps the opposite, to a crisis that could erase the achievements and bring about a calamity greater than that which was caused in World War II. In this connection it is proper to note that behind the world order—which was founded after World War II out of an honest aspiration of all the nations that suffered from the war to establish a stable peace—hovered the threat of a third world war as a danger that was on the verge of immediately breaking out, throughout the whole second half of the twentieth century. humanism, globalization, postmodernism 117

The principal axis was the “cold war” between the United States, the countries of Europe and Japan, and the Soviet Union (with its satellites) and Communist China. It was nevertheless concretely manifested in various “hot wars” between various client-states of the two major powers in the “third world,” on a local scale but to an extent and force that bordered on genocide. The two sides that fought, and their supporters, did not hesitate to compare the results of these wars with the Holocaust. The wars between Israel and the Arab countries should be included among these wars, and from Israel’s perspective they were accompanied by the fear of the possibility of a second Holocaust. If despite this the outbreak of a third world war, with all its extent and force, was averted, this was because of the nuclear threat, which made direct war between the contending powers prohibitively costly to all concerned. It is clear from this how the threats that appeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites, and after the seemingly unequivocal victory of the United States as leader of the free world, ignited the new flames of protest. The dialectical character of the dangers (seemingly unanticipated) after the collapse of the Soviet Union was expressed in their being based in those competitive relations, which the dominant developed countries and the wealthy, powerful social classes defined as fair and beneficial to all competitors—for they all were supposed to have been given “equal opportunity” to utilize their abilities and succeed. At this critical moment came to light the sad truth that social and political scientists—those who were taken by surprise even by the collapse of the Soviet Union—had ignored. First, it became clear that from an ethical and legal, social and political standpoint there was no way to insure the principle of fair competition, unless it is supported by a foundation of justice—economic, social-service, and administrative-political—which insures real “equal opportunity,” not merely in a legal-formal sense, and a real chance to all who participate in the competition to succeed in it; in other words, a basis that insures that there will not be a once-and-for-all victory of one of the participants, but all will profit at least to the minimal extent that will enable them to continue in the competition. Second, it became clear that from the outset, globalization—whether with respect to the relations among rich and poor countries, or the relations between the rich and poor strata within each society—was based on competition between unequal forces. That is to say, the poor in each case were not given “equal opportunity” at the outset even to enter the competition given its conditions, much less to prevail in it. 118 eliezer schweid

The fate of the weak was decreed in advance, that they should lose— “big time,” in the common parlance. In effect, they were turned at the start of the process into victims of shameful exploitation, unless they resorted to unfair powers and tactics that violated the rules of the game, tactics that the strong were not interested in resorting to, because of the economic and political damage bound up with them; but to the weak, this way seemed more profitable, because it was for them, in effect, the only option. The dialectic was expressed, thus, in the fact that the same competitive policy, which in its initial stages yielded the fruits of prosperity with which one could appease, at least in part, the losers of the competition—so that they could maintain their standing and continue to contribute their considerable part to the efforts of production as workers, and of marketing as consumers—started to yield shameful failures, when the “developed countries” and the “powerful” strata in society vanquished their “weak” opponents unequivocally. This was the meaning of the seemingly unanticipated dangers that were manifested after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The reason for this is quite clear. As long as the Soviet Union and its satellites competed with the United States and its allies for influence in the third world, the third-world regimes were able to preserve a certain measure of competitive independence, by maneuvering skillfully between the two blocs, even between rival states within each of them. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union they had only one way to maintain independence in the face of a power such as the United States: by employing “unfair” tactics. This was done on the part of the countries whose peoples were exploited to the point of enslavement, by terror that turned the achievements of advanced scientific technology against its producers, and on the part of the exploited strata in the society, who lost the support of the Communist parties and Socialist trade unions that had been supported by the Soviet Union: violent protests and strikes designed to inflict pain, disrupting the processes of production and marketing, and descending to the world of crime in order to participate, through criminal means, in the prodigious profits of the “proper” victorious classes.

Let us first take a look at the dialectical development that took place in the relations between the “developed countries” and the “undeveloped countries.” One of the negative results that followed dialectically from the benefits that were derived from the economy of prosperity for the sake of the lower strata of the society in the wealthy countries, but especially humanism, globalization, postmodernism 119 in the poorer countries, was an unprecedented rise in the birth-rate (set against an unprecedented decrease in the birth-rate in the developed countries and in its wealthy strata), which caused a population explosion in the poor countries, and put an end to any hope that the poor countries or the poorer social strata would ever improve their ability to actualize their right of “equal opportunity” that was given to them by raising the bar of their scientific-technological education and by developing their own economic and scientific-technological competitive framework. Thus was formed an intolerable ecological imbalance that generates abysmal envy, hatred, and rage on the one hand, and prodigious corruption on the other hand, between the absolute minority of the wealthy, who enjoy two-thirds of the resources of production in the world, squandering them through rampant consumption while they continue getting richer (thus fulfilling the imperative of continual growth, which is necessary to drive the economy of abundance) and incidentally destroying the ecological balance of the entire world, versus the poor majority whose relative and absolute poverty continues to increase from year to year. These fateful developments had three direct consequences: (1) inten- sification of jealousy and hatred to the point of manifesting violent and murderous madness, demanding vengeance for its own sake—offset by feelings of shame for which one seeks atonement by correcting marginal political and social injustices that can be corrected with relative ease, without changing or redirecting the economic system itself; (2) strengthening of the corrupt totalitarian regimes in the third world, while intensifying the oppression and exploitation of their citizens—offset by the aspiration to increase the compensations that they receive from the developed nations for their services, far beyond the limit of what is worthwhile for the developed countries; (3) an increasing flood of immigration from the third world to the developed nations. We note that the first immigrants were the members of the educated middle class, which is very small in the third-world countries, because they had the chance to raise their standard of living and to participate afterwards as equals in the economy of abundance. We shall discuss later the far-reaching impact of this immigration on the social fabric of the wealthy countries. For the third-world countries, this had the following effects: (1) A brain drain which reduced even further the chances of changing the corrupt, despotic regimes for more moderate regimes and to approach, even somewhat, to the achievements of the economy of abundance in the wealthy countries. (2) The creation of diasporas of emigrants from the poor countries in the wealthy countries. 120 eliezer schweid

These diasporas were immersed in the society and culture of the countries in which they were absorbed, but they nevertheless continued to feel like foreigners and continued to identify culturally, nationally and religiously with their people and country of origin. Thus the rulers of the poorer nations increased their power to put pressure on the richer nations, which benefited from them and were dependent on them, and among the absorbing nations there began to develop a serious demographic, social, cultural, and political problem, which we shall discuss later. What was the counterreaction? It is clear that there was no way to withdraw protection from the corrupt regimes that had been established by the powers that retreated from the old empires, without losing control. To the same extent, it was not possible to change these regimes from outside. Willy-nilly, the wealthy powers continued to support the corrupt tyrannical regimes which they had established with their own hands, with the knowledge that this stood in intolerable contradiction to the supra- national, liberal-individualistic, and competitive principles of their countries. On certain occasions attempts were made to change regimes that had aroused especial opposition among their peoples, through various means that arose from within, but it became clear that the new regimes—which arose on the firm foundation of massive support in their lands—were religious or communist fundamentalists; that is to say, more despotic than their predecessors, and a priori hostile to the wealthy nations, and even more able to gouge them in exchange for the natural resources in their possession (mainly oil). It was not possible to halt the immigration from the poor countries, especially because the need for cheap labor outweighed the fear of the social and cultural effects of such immigration. Nevertheless, attempts were made to transfer operations requiring cheap manual labor from the producing countries to the countries that consumed those products, in order to exploit the cheap labor power more efficiently, and to relieve to some extent the distress of unemployment and the hostility against the nations that benefited from it. Corrective efforts were made also in the direction of integrating the immigrants in the wealthy countries, as we shall see. But these two interests did not change (or more precisely were never intended to change) the dynamic of the smoldering hostility. The contribution to relieving distress was meager; and because they wanted from the start only to moderate the distress and not to remove its causes (and this, through increasing the profitability of the operation through cheap labor), these strategies increased the hostility and the accumulation of means to bring it to effective expression. humanism, globalization, postmodernism 121

On the international level, the impact of these developments on the course of globalization—with respect to its leaders and its beneficiaries— are to be recognized first of all in the contradictions that started to become manifest in the relation of the productive nations that were organized in the Common Market to their nationality, and this had implications for the Jewish People in the State of Israel and in the Diaspora. We already saw that the individualistic ideology at the foundation of globalization did not abolish the dependency of individuals on their national collectives, but strengthened it, by exchanging an ideological identification for a mass-behavioristic identification. This exchange enabled the effecting of the “revolution,” which was primarily ideological, of “limiting” the sovereignty of the nation-states for the benefit of the international economic federations. It would be correct to define the transfer of a part of the sovereign functions from the nation-state to the international economic federations as a retreat or weakening of nationalism, but a deeper consideration of the long-term tendencies would suggest that the intention was to strengthen the nationalism of the wealthy nations at the expense of the nations with less corporate wealth, and certainly at the expense of the poor nations, whom these corporations exploited. The Western nations had fought each other for centuries until they “succeeded” finally in razing the institutions of their common civilization to the ground in World War II. Then there arose the federations, whose “global” character was implemented based on the economic, scientific, and technological potential of that same common Western civilization. This grew out of the insight that was born of the destruction, namely that cooperative activity on the basis of common interests and abilities was apt to realize the national interests of all Western nation-states with greater success than the military supremacy of one country over another or one empire over another. On the basis of the same insight, they also gave up colonial imperialism— which was expensive, unstable, and ineffective—in return for indirect control through economic and political-military dependency, and they blurred the borders that divided the nations that participated in these federations. But the rather crude hint that in the last analysis it was not their intention to give up national sovereignty was the strengthening of all kinds of armed forces, financed with the cream of investments and equipped with the cream of postmodern technological achievements, in the hands of the nation-states. Through these forces, which could be reinforced far from the border, but deployed quickly and efficiently when needed, the nation-state defended itself from external or internal danger. 122 eliezer schweid

In this context, we note that the military treaties that were enacted among the countries of every federation, between the federations and between them and their security forces in the poor countries, were hierarchical, with respect to the power-relations and with respect to the connection of every sovereign nation to its treaty-partners. In this way, each country took care to keep guard, to the best of its economic and political ability, over its military sovereignty, and even to strengthen it through ties with other nations. If so, then even when they waived the exercise of certain functions of national sovereignty, especially in the economic area, they never waived sovereignty itself, which was symbolized and concretized by its armed forces. Incidentally, this remained the instrument through which the political apparatus in the member nations of the global federations preserved their decisive advantage vis-à-vis the economic framework on which it was dependent. We should also take note of the relative security of the defense budgets, in comparison to the cost of all the other services that the liberal states finance through taxes. What, then, is the dialectic embodied in the ideological retreat from the supremacy of the national identity, in favor of the “federal” identity? The answer that comes from considering the dynamic of implementing the idea of globalization in practice is that the intention was, in one respect, to strengthen the sovereignty of the more powerful nations, who benefit the most from globalization (the United States, France, Germany) relative to the nations that are less powerful, or that benefit from it less, and who for that reason identify less with the federations, and sometimes sit on the fence (England, Italy, the Scandinavian countries, and now also the countries of Eastern Europe that have joined the Common Market). In another respect, the intention was to strengthen the countries that belong to the federation as against countries that belong to other federations, or countries that supply resources, cheap labor and markets. But this had far-reaching internal ramifications: by belonging to a federation that restricts the national sovereignty of its member nations, one strengthened also the dominant position of the social strata that benefited the most from globalization and that led it, at the expense of the lower social strata, who benefited less from it and suffered a tangible loss of economic, social, cultural, and political status on account of it. This phenomenon embodies the dialectic of relations between the wealthy and poorer countries, as well as between the poorer and wealthier strata in all the countries, with respect to their relation to nationalism. In the context of international relations, the dialectical response is expressed in the ambivalence of the dominant elites in the wealthy countries towards their nationalism. From an external view, it seems an amazing humanism, globalization, postmodernism 123 contradiction: these elites express sharp criticism of their people’s nationalism, in light of memories of the Second World War, and the values of individualism and universalism of the globalist ideology. In this context they decry nationalism as a false and immoral ideology, which comes to justify imperialistic wars of conquest. But this reveals their motivation: the desire to overcome strong interest-based opposition to globalization on the part of the popular social strata, and expression of regret before the leaders of third-world countries for the old imperialist colonialism, in order to convince them that the countries that are partners in the international federations have retreated once and for all from the feelings and ideas that motivated them to conquer empires in the past. In other words, one should not expect from them the danger that they would repeat the old injustice. But for the same reason it is necessary to confer full legitimacy on the corrupt, despotic nationalist regimes of the third- world countries, for it is clear that these countries cannot survive without such regimes: if they change them, the worse alternative of anarchy will take their place. What, then, justifies the all-too-obvious contradiction between their attitude toward nationalism at home and their attitude toward the nationalism of the poor countries? First, the recognition that one cannot impose liberalism from outside, for true liberalism is expressed in respecting the “choice” of every nation of the regime appropriate to itself. Second, the feeling that the ultranationalism of the nations oppressed under imperialism is a fitting reaction to the oppression that they suffered from it in the past, and that it is a form of historic retributive justice. It is easy to see the fateful implications of this ambivalent stance for the wealthy Western nations, as to the fate of the State of Israel among the nations. Israel arose, as we know, from the ashes of World War II. The political constellation that was formed then: retreat of the liberal nations, particularly England, from imperialism, and the struggle between them and the Soviet Union to acquire spheres of influence after the retreat, allowed the United Nations to endorse the establishment of a Jewish national state on a part of the territory of the Land of Israel. But after the establishment of the State, Israel was forced to maneuver among the conflicting interests of the Great Powers. These were courting the Arab states who controlled the majority of the geopolitical space, as well as the resources vital for those nations’ industry. In the process, Israel was forced to maneuver between the interests of all the powerful nations and the national interests of the Arab nations and the Palestinians, some of whom had become Israeli citizens, whole others were residents of Jordan or refugees. 124 eliezer schweid

Thus Israel was thrown into the midst of a situation fraught with contradictions. It had arisen as a nation-state with the purpose of realizing the right of national self-determination that had been denied the Jews of Western and Arab countries. In this sense, one could draw an analogy between Israel and all the new nations who arose at the same time in place of the retreating empires. The Zionist movement saw the Jewish people as an Eastern nation that had been exiled to the West and escaped from it, so it was therefore returning with full historical rights to its place in the Middle East. But in the geographical sphere of the Middle East the Jewish people represented the Western culture from which it had come, and the threat that Western culture posed to the national and religious identity of its inhabitants, most of whom were Arab Muslims. Against this background, the State of Israel could not merit full legitimacy on the part of the Western powers, who were interested in exercising influence in the Arab geographical arena, and certainly not on the part of the Arab countries and the Palestinians. From the standpoint of the Arab countries and the Palestinians, Israel was a throwback to the old colonialism, and in terms of the Arab Islamic-nationalist myth, it represented a revisitation of the Crusaders. The Western countries, apart from the United States (which itself had settled in the recent past in a territory inhabited by “another people”), bought the Arab argument and supported it. In their eyes, Israel represented the kind of nationalism they were trying to wean themselves of after the war, and this fact provided them with a sense of righteousness with side benefits. Not only the State of Israel suffered serious repercussions from this syndrome, but the entire Jewish people. The old anti-Semitism returned with renewed vigor after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the Arab countries and also in Western countries. Even the liberal elites in Western countries justify it as a moral stance—in the ideological cloak of “anti- Zionism”—and every Jew, even if he is an anti-Zionist, is regarded as a Zionist for this hateful purpose. We come now to the second source of the renewal of anti-Semitism on the part of the popular strata in Western countries. These strata were opposed from the outset to globalization, because it did not benefit them. Just the opposite—in some respects they even suffered from it, on account of the official retreat from nationalism as a highly regarded form of group identification. This much was clear. From the standpoint of the popular strata, the denigration of nationalism as a negative phenomenon was a direct attack on the group cultural identity consciousness in which they took pride, without offering a solid alternative. Moreover, the humanism, globalization, postmodernism 125 depreciation of nationalism, in which they took pride, symbolized to them an attack on their own social and political status, that is to say, an attack on the democratic feeling that they are masters of their own house in their own land and country—they alone, but not those foreigners-come-lately, are entitled to the privilege of civic rights in their land. This feeling by itself would be enough to arouse an extreme nationalist reaction against the retreat from nationalism advocated by the elites who support globalization. How much more so, when you add the factor of the mass immigration from third-world countries, with its demographic, social-political, and cultural ramifications! The foreign cultural-national and religious character of the immigration from third-world countries was immediately perceived as a serious threat to the national identity of the wealthy countries that absorbed them, and it had a direct impact on the popular classes who were forced to absorb it in their urban quarters, in their places of work, in their social-service centers and in the schools that they attended. The elite social classes, who identified with the principles that required absorption of this immigration, and who benefited the most from the fact of cheap labor power, without being forced to absorb them into their social circle, shut their eyes and ears to the problem. But could there be any doubt in the nature of the popular response, that this should have been anticipated in advance? In all the liberal enlightened European nations there was awakened a wave of neo-Fascist nationalism, laced with xenophobia, whose purpose was to announce to the world that nationalism was alive, breathing and kick- ing—let its betrayers be damned! But in one respect the “foreigners,” the despised-despisers, could join forces with the “natives,” the despising-despised, especially if they were Arabs and Muslims—namely, anti-Semitism, which renewed its youth and came back to life in a great wave, even after the Jews of the Diaspora were seduced into believing that the traumatic memory from the Sec- ond World War had uprooted it completely. It suddenly became clear that wherever the pressure of Arab-Muslim immigration increases in the West, anti-Semitism increases with it, and it threatens to return to be not only a private emotion that is manifested here and there in interpersonal interactions, but also a political movement that can bring sworn enemies together under the same banner: the old, established popular strata, who tend to the nationalist right, the foreign immigrants from Islamic countries, who represent their different national interests in a small but growing minority, and the extreme “liberal” or “anti-Zionist” left. 126 eliezer schweid

On the Way from National Culture to a Multicultural (Pluralistic) Society

Throughout the previous discussion we pointed out parallels and reciprocal effects between the developments of relations of rich and poor countries and those of the upper classes that benefit from globalization versus the lower classes that lose out on account of it. We saw that in these two parallel arenas one can see widening and deepening gaps of inequality and injustice between the powerful few, whose victory in the competitive race was insured from the outset, and the many weaker parties, whose failure was dictated from the get-go. From the standpoint of the relations between social strata in each of the liberal countries, where most of the Jewish people reside, one should pay attention to the implications of this polarization on the axis of the increasing enrichment of the upper strata versus the increasing impoverishment of the lower strata. When one is speaking of internal relations of a single national society, the fact that the upper strata of the society set the rules of fair competition for the whole society, out of the assumption that they bear responsibility for all its members, takes on a unique dialectical significance. In conditions of crisis, which must occur frequently on account of international disturbances as well as national events of a social or political but not economic nature, the upper strata who are in a position of power and political authority will generally be ready to accept decisions pertaining to the prosperity and happiness of every individual, family, and community—and especially to the whole nation—on the basis of interests that they perceive to be national interests. The danger is that this elite class, who were not elected to their status except by virtue of the economic power that they have accumulated, have by this fact the power to influence the elected leaders (and even the outcome of the elections themselves). This situation is apt to harbor a dangerous dialectic, expressed in the oppositions of interests, by virtue of which every faction in the nation will tend to define the general national interest in accord with its own private interests. This generates sharp hostilities: economic corruption spreads on the upper levels and violent crime on the lower levels. It is not hard to guess the threatening consequences, for we are not speaking of fears for the future, but processes that are already occurring. In the first stage of implementation of the policy of globalization in the developed nations, it was possible to represent the widening of the socio-economic gaps as a temporary continuation of the traditional gaps between the social classes, whose source was in the modern period. It would be possible to overcome them, in the hope that with the success of humanism, globalization, postmodernism 127 the policy of globalization all individuals would benefit from the prosperity, indeed, each in accordance with his abilities and his creative contribution, and the social gaps would not exceed the limits of propriety. On closer inspection, we see that this hope, which had been duly supported by social science, was the source of the popular support that the policy of globalization enjoyed at the outset. But as time passed it became clear that the deepening and broadening of the gaps was not temporary. It was fixed, and constituted an intrinsic component of the competitive policy, in keeping with its basic principles, a logical consequence of a “healthy economy,” which did not care about the distribution of wealth and happiness among the powerful and the poor. It turns out that a certain percent of unemployment is a good thing for a “healthy economy,” although unemployment does not make for the happiness of the unemployed; competition for desirable jobs yields competition in professional skills; competition prefers the best and regulates the level of pay for them, so that it will be worthwhile for producers, because their products will be in demand. When prosperity shines and growth increases, the temporary suffering caused to various workers, each time in different professions, does not overshadow the general sense of happiness. But when a crisis occurs that is not under the control of the government, and the growth in productivity is halted—or even declines—one must then save the economy at cost to the workers, so that in the future they will be able to return to their previous employment. One even must apply “harsh remedies” in the form of “economic decrees.” Those who are economically powerful get to decide them, and in a way that benefits them, with the “scientific” justification that in the long run, what is good for the economy is also good for the workers. But in the meanwhile, not only are those below the poverty line rendered even poorer and liable to be driven to hunger, but the lower middle classes are pushed below the poverty line. At this stage, it becomes even harder to ignore the scientific force of the conclusion that the cyclicality of economic crises, the need for increasing efficiency, and the need to adjust for gross errors or abuse in management of the system, have the combined effect that the gaps between the upper strata and those in the middle, between the middle and the lower, and between the lower and those below the poverty level, are continually increasing. This is a permanent dynamic, for which there is no hope that it will change of itself through the market forces. Moreover, the poverty that is caused by the policy of globalization is not only in the category of a relative difference between a higher standard of living and a lower 128 eliezer schweid standard of living, but rather of an absolute difference between a waste- ful and corrupt standard of living and one that does not satisfy the basic needs required for a life of freedom and dignity. Let us enumerate the factors that cause these social results: (1) Abolition of the “right of a working livelihood” that communist, social-democratic, and even liberal-socialist regimes of the modern age prior to World War II promised to provide to their citizens under the “welfare state.” (2) Extreme differences between the wage paid for professional work, requiring knowledge and sophisticated skills, and the low wage that producers are willing to pay for necessary physical but not professional labor, amounting to slave wages, far below the minimum considered necessary for citizens of the country. It is clear that citizens prefer unemployment to employment in such kinds of work, and one must therefore import foreign workers; these constitute a slave class hovering on the border of legal- ity, but the judicial system has shown its impotence to help the matter. (3) Reduction in retirement and welfare payments (which were established in the period of the modern “welfare state”). (4) Cuts in the level of public services that the poor can enjoy, especially in the areas of health and education—precisely at a time that the capabilities of medicine, of which the rich avail themselves, are advancing marvelously, and higher education has become a condition without which it is impossible to gain a proper earning capacity. (5) Deterioration of the social status of the poor, which translates into a loss of their political power and restriction or elimination of their ability to conduct an effective struggle over wages and working conditions, because the ability to protect their wages and working conditions has become the exclusive prerogative of well-connected workers, those whose employment is in professions vital to the whole society, and therefore the good of the community is in their hands, almost as much as it is in the hands of the producers and the financiers. It thus becomes clear that for these reasons the poverty generated in a competitive society, whose rules of competition are set by the successful, means that from the standpoint of the poor it is an absolute loss of control over the basic conditions of their existence, and especially over the ability to provide for their future or the future of their children in time of old age, illness, economic crisis, or war. This means that even if in the era of globalization poverty is not (at least not generally) bound up with hunger, nakedness, and homelessness, it is bound up with a wretched quality of life, degradation, loss of freedom and dignity, inability to exercise the rights that the law promises to all, but only formally; because in order to exercise rights one must take possession of them; and in order to take humanism, globalization, postmodernism 129 possession of them, one needs economic means and the political clout conditional on it. It is therefore obvious that when this significance of the social-economic policy—from the modern national paradigm to the globalist paradigm—becomes clear, globalization turns into a factor that exacerbates all the social polarities and turns the demands for correcting them into demands for improving the standard of living by improving economic status. What polarities are we talking about? Since we are concerned about the Jewish people, let us enumerate the polarities and the dialectical reciprocity between the polarized factions, which our era inherited from the older (modern) age: (1) between the interests of the great Jewish centers that survived the Holocaust, in particular between the Jews of the State of Israel and those of the American Diaspora; (2) between the Jews from Islamic countries and those from European countries and the Americas (North and South); (3) between movements, parties, and organizations that turned to opposing solutions for the problems of the Jews and Juda- ism in the modern age: socialist and communist revolutionaries; the various branches of Zionism; the various modern-Jewish and ultra-Orthodox religious movements; (4) between the “religious” and “secular” around the question of the relation to “secular” civilization and the question of the relation of the state to religion; (5) between Jews and the non-Jewish “others” who relate to Jews with hostility (in the Diaspora, various kinds of anti-Semitism, and in Israel the Palestinians, the Arab states, and their supporters). Since the two greatest new centers—in Israel and in the United States—were built up through immigration, which came from all the Jewish Diaspora lands, they became the focus of all kinds of conflicts and reciprocal relations in the course of the efforts, that did not succeed, to unite the people in order to rescue them from the approaching catastrophe.

The two dramatic historical events that opened the postmodern era for the Jewish people—the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel—brought about a dialectical transformation in the process of polarization in the Jewish people in modern times. The Jewish people recognized the existential necessity to unite and integrate its forces in order to achieve reconstruction and prevent a second Holocaust. This, in turn, generated a readiness to suspend the conflicts of interests, to tone down the debates as much as possible, and to focus on the consensual task: establishing the state and putting it on a solid footing. In order to understand the rest of our inquiry concerning questions of the multicultural society, we should note that given this background, 130 eliezer schweid a melting-pot policy within Israel was not only possible but mandatory. This was implemented in several arenas—in education, which strove to achieve national integration, and in shaping the image of the Jewish public space, as well as the models of parliamentary democracy in Israel—all as conditions of the unity of fate with respect to the national collective’s struggle to survive. But suspending the conflicts did not make them disappear. Just the opposite—the prices of reconstruction added tensions and opposing interests and piled up ideological confrontations and political power struggles. It was therefore obvious why they all broke out and ignited anew in polarized form after the Six-Day War and later, in greater force, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the wake of these two events the recognition spread that the danger of the Holocaust had passed, never to return, that the entire Jewish people (more or less) had succeeded in locating in the wealthy, developing countries and in the social strata that benefited the most from globalization. The Jewish people thus returned to “normal” (from its viewpoint) conditions of existence and turned to deal with competitive “settling accounts” for compensation on account of the investments, sacrifices, sufferings, and deprivations that it regarded as the prices of reconstruction. The sum of the claims that they all served on each other would contribute to the debate concerning the problem of the State of Israel’s image as a Jewish state and as a democratic state, the problem of the future of Diaspora Jews with respect to preserving their own identity and the problem of the relations between the State of Israel and the Diaspora, while in the background the process of increasing individualism, which followed from the initial implementation of the policy of globalization, continued. Indeed, only a few foresaw its far-reaching ramifications on the problems and their solutions, concerning which the debate was becoming more polarized.

Within Diaspora Jewry one could recognize the social and political transformation that had also been brought about by globalization in their lands of residence, first of all in their being focused on themselves and on the problems that followed from their smooth integration into their lands of residence, which benefited from globalization. In this vein, one could see a process of Diaspora Jews’ distancing themselves from the State of Israel, whether because of their reduced interest in it, or on account of the polarizing conflicts between the State of Israel and Israeli Arabs and Palestin- ians on the level of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in the Jews’ lands of residence. On the other hand, the Jewish communities and movements started to grapple with the challenge of globalization with respect to humanism, globalization, postmodernism 131 preserving Jewish identity. The fact that it had great difficulty dealing with the problem of accelerating assimilation followed from the fact that the processes of globalization, which emphasized individualism, caused the great Jewish centers in Diaspora to scatter and decentralize. In parallel, an increasing number of Jews, who continued to identify personally as Jews, lost interest in organized forms of Judaism, whether as communities or movements. This meant, in effect, that they ceased to care whether their children would be educated as Jews. This was a clear indication of their accelerating integration into globalized society, which already showed a tendency in the direction of multicultural openness, and at the same time a flattening of the cultural level in the direction of forming a mass- merchandized common denominator, onto which one could graft also partial components of Jewish identity within a rich, albeit shallow, panoply of identities. Would the Jews of Diaspora succeed in preserving their unique identity in this free environment? Would the motivation to preserve an identity, rooted in a high level of Jewish education and intensive immersion in education and in shaping communal life, maintain a foothold in the face of the great attractive force of the satisfactions of universal multicultural intermingling? In the State of Israel a parallel problem developed as a result of grappling with the costs of absorbing the mass immigration, the war with the Palestinians, and its repercussions on the relation of Israeli Arabs to the Jewish State, and the polarizing confrontations between the religious and secular Israelis around the problems of religion-and-state and the Jew- ish character of the Jewish public space. As we said, all these problems intensified on account of the spread of the individualistic ethos of the policy of globalization, which took the place of the old collective national ethos. In the initial period of globalization, hope was awakened that a rise of the economic standard of living would moderate these conflicts, would remedy the deprivations and would facilitate consensual solutions. But this hope was illusory. That is to say, it became clear that the enrichment of the upper strata and impoverishment of the lower strata polarized the confrontation between the ideologies of the parties representing “religious” versus “secular” positions; positions that support Israel as a democratic state (a “civil state”) versus positions that support Israel as a Jewish state, and so forth. It is clear that as a result of this it was not possible to continue the policy that was dictated by the confrontation of the ideologies in the modern period. A pressing need was felt to reconstruct the unity of the nation on a new basis. 132 eliezer schweid

At this critical stage, the dialectic of implementing a policy of globalization was obvious, and created a reality that was recognizably different than the one that had been created in the countries where the process of globalization had begun to be implemented at a much earlier stage. In Israel, there was a polarization of the confrontations that followed from the delayed reaction against the melting-pot policy that had been the practice in the early years of the state. The policy of globalization led to radicalization of the anti-integration tendencies, seeking to resusci- tate the regional identities that had been suppressed in the past. Without calculated intention, there started to arise in Israel in actuality a multicultural society, on the basis of a common Jewish identity, on whose characteristics a polarized controversy broke out. The serious repercussions of the policy of globalization on the severity of this controversy awakened sharp criticism from various sides. To this, the supporters of globalization replied: In their view, the reason for the collapse of national solidarity was not the fault of globalization, but the opposite—the inconsistent application of the principles of globalization across the board: in legislation, in privatization of the economy, in applying political and educational reforms, for implementation had been accomplished by way of compro- mising with the old ideological considerations of the parties competing for power. The conclusion that followed from this was that in order to overcome the crisis, one must apply the policy of globalization in all areas with absolute consistency. Thus began a comprehensive process, striving now to shape the image of the State of Israel as a society unified in its national objectives, but nevertheless free to actualize the whole panoply of cultural identities present in it. Thus, despite the obvious differences, there arose finally the slogan borrowed primarily from the European Common Market countries’ grappling with the problem of mass immigration from the third-world (especially Islamic) countries: “a multicultural society.” In Israel the problem was the opposite: its founding Jewish society—and in broader compass, the Israeli society, including within it both large national-religious minorities, especially Muslim Arabs—must discover a common basis that will make possible the coexistence of two national cultures, each of which containing areas both of consensus and of controversy regarding the national common denominator that they all desire, not only for the sake of their material prosperity, but also for the sake of their spiritual growth. Against this background, there arises in full force the question, whether the globalist notion of a “multicultural society” is appropriate to the State of Israel or contradicts its deepest national-cultural interest. humanism, globalization, postmodernism 133

Globalist “Multicultural” National Society, or Pluralistic National Society?

The vision of a multicultural national society, as presented today by the advocates of a consistent policy of globalization, is a structural inversion of the vision of a unitary national society, which was imposed through the melting-pot policy. Thus, there is no a priori difference between Israel and other countries built on the basis of absorbing mass immigration, such as the United States. In these countries, too, they first conducted a strict melting-pot policy in order to insure the creation of a homogeneous society and afterwards relaxed the policy and allowed independent cultures to reconstitute themselves on the basis of the shared national foundation that had already been incorporated. We emphasize that we are speaking in effect of two stages of development within the same national-democratic societies. The melting-pot and multicultural policies appear to contradict each other, but this is a dialectical contradiction, for they complement each other at the same time. We can illustrate the correctness of this view also by reference to the process of consolidation of the European nationalities in the (old) modern period. It began with forcible commingling, under political pressure, of various ethnic and religious minorities, which first dwelt in the same land among the population of the national majority. This was in effect a melting-pot policy that was conducted over several generations, with the aspiration to achieve cultural-national hegemony. Thus was created the problem of the national and religious minorities in the majority of the countries of Europe in the modern age, of which the Jews are the most blatant example. In the United States, and in other countries that were built up from mass immigration (such as Canada, South America, South Africa, and Australia), they conducted a melting-pot policy in the same period with a different goal than in Europe, for in order to blend many groups of new immigrants, it was necessary for the country interested in them to allow them from the outset a certain limited measure of preservation of their religious and ethnic identity, which the immigrants did not want to give up at the outset. But both in the United States and in Europe, when it became clear that the melting-pot policy had achieved as much absorption and adaptation as the minorities or immigrants were willing to undergo—they were in fact already absorbed and established, and could display resistance that it was impossible to overcome—they exchanged the melting-pot policy for the liberal vision of a pluralistic national society, on the basis of tolerance and common aspiration for worldly happiness. 134 eliezer schweid

From this description of the process, we learn that despite the presentation of a pluralistic (and later multicultural) society as a critical negation of the melting-pot national vision, it constitutes at the same time a dialectical continuation of the melting pot, whose goal is to complete it by correcting the manner of its implementation. The reason is clear; had not the melting-pot policy preceded it, at least for a single generation—in order to insure raising the second-generation children of the immigrants with the goal of full “acculturation”—it would not be possible afterwards to apply the liberal policy, which restored to them a limited capacity to reconstitute something of the dimensions of their unique identity within the unified cultural context. It is thus clear that without prior “acculturation” there would not have been formed a sufficiently deep and strong common social basis to support several ethnic or national minority groups in a way that they would enrich it and not tear it apart.

What, then, did the melting-pot policy intend, in every place where it was applied? To impose, with the authority of the state, on all who came within its gates—on each person with the cultural heritage in which he had been educated in his land—the norms of language, law, national culture (or civic lifestyle), as well as a connection with certain articles of faith and symbols that had been defined by the prior members of that society as the “civic religion” of the country (in Israel, this was the ideology of “political Zionism”). This demand was considered as justifiable by the absorbing party, as well as by the immigrants, who had left their birth countries and come to the new land of their own free will, in order to enjoy the resources of the new, attractive land, and to merit the chances for happiness that could be found in it. In their view, its government had the right to require of them, in return for its generosity, their integration and identification with it, so that it should thereby realize its objective— for its own sake and for the sake of all who came to it, as individuals and not as representatives of other nations or religions: the growth, strengthening, and prosperity of its civilization. It was thus clear that with respect to the aspiration to complete cultural integration, the first ambitious process was fated to succeed in part and to fail in part; this was because there was an inner contradiction in every overambitious attempt to enforce on people who are rooted in a natural culture—which shaped their personality—another natural culture, which also developed originally in a process of transmission from generation to generation. Human beings cannot change their distinctive heritage within a single generation, even if they desire to do so. Therefore, when one tries humanism, globalization, postmodernism 135 to impose it on them with too great pressure, they display resistance, because they see it as an arbitrary and tyrannical injustice. This is the case regarding the absorbing culture—if it forces itself to ingest popula- tions forcibly against their will, it destroys itself, because it contradicts its own structural logic. But if one relaxes after the initial pressure, one can repair the partial damage that was done from both sides. This happened also in the State of Israel. Let us examine the results of exercising the melting-pot policy during the mass immigration. Imple- mentation of this policy was different in Israel than its implementation in other countries that absorbed mass immigration. First, it was not directed in full force against the Israeli Arabs, who were permitted to preserve all aspects of their cultural, national, and religious identity. Second, all those who came to Israel were members of the same people—they were Jews. Therefore, Israel was able to apply an especially ambitious melting-pot policy towards them. But it became clear, as a result of this, that within a single generation it crushed not only the subcultures of the new immigrants, but also the subculture of the Yishuv society, which had developed in its time on the basis of a humanistic and traditional-religious renaissance. Today, nothing is left of that Yishuv culture except the Hebrew language, the Hebrew literature of that period, and a measure of the openness that it displayed toward the canonical sources of Judaism, for in those sources one can find the tangible Jewish common denominator of all the varied cultures that the immigrants from different lands of origin brought with them: they were most different from each other in the influences that they absorbed from their surrounding environments. But in what identified them as Jews—with respect to their historical memory and their connection to the sources—they were united. We nevertheless recall that the immigrants’ relation to the sources of their Jewish identity was not uniform. There were some who wished to hold onto them with all their might; there were some who wanted to hold on to only part of them; and there were some who wished to distance themselves from them. Therefore, because of its extremism, the melting-pot policy failed in Israel with respect to its ambitious goal of national acculturation. Most of the immigrants were not willing to surrender everything that rendered them distinctive with respect to the heritage of their lands of origin, or what distinguished them as Jews. Precisely on returning to their land, to live as free people, they expected that they would honor their special Jewish identity. But on second examination, it appears that despite this, the melting-pot policy in Israel was not a complete failure. On the contrary. In addition to the major achievement of 136 eliezer schweid imparting Hebrew as the language of Israeli culture to all the immigrants who were absorbed and immersed, it succeeded in “secularizing” most of the immigrants, including those who remained religious. By “secularizing” we refer primarily to the large wave of immigration that came from the Islamic countries, to whom the melting-pot policy imparted education, work skills, and the life-habits necessary for integration in a modern scientific-technological civilization, which they did not have close familiarity in their lands of origin. In this way, the melting-pot policy was beneficial to the masses of immigrants, despite the suffering it caused them, because it enabled them to be active, contributing participants to the best of their ability in the national project: its settlement, its economy, its society, its defense forces. Thus they began to participate in shaping the unfolding reality of Israeli culture, with its special and unique character, and thus they laid a foundation for the spontaneous movement opposed to the melting-pot policy, which one can describe as an original Israeli renaissance of the panoply of Jewish cultures. It would seem that one could describe this development, too, as a long-term dialectical success of the melting-pot policy, although it was not part of their plan. The melting- pot proponents made their peace with this result after the fact, and this laid the background for the proponents of globalization to proclaim the slogan of the multicultural society. But unfortunately the meaning of this slogan, which proclaims uncompromising war against the melting-pot policy, which everyone knows is dead and gone, is in effect the opposite, as we shall see later.

In order to get at the facts in this matter, one should examine critically the motives and sources of the policy of globalization, which started to be implemented in the 1980s—still without raising the banner of “multiculturalism.” We note that the globalist policy, which was implemented both in legislation and in education, did not come from the popular sources which it was supposed to “honor” but from the academy, and in effect it tried to circumvent the phenomenon of the popular renaissance—which by now was in its full flower—by putting on a show of cautious tolerance, restrained and distant. The policy of globalization is “considerate” and “respectful.” It shows “sensitivity” and “empathy” to national movements because it does not want to arouse their opposition; but in fact it has an altogether different agenda—one may say, opposite. Therefore its objective is to convince the groups that are liable to oppose it that it is acting on a plane that is neutral towards them—for their benefit, not against them. From this follows the humanism, globalization, postmodernism 137 sharp criticism that it directs at the melting-pot policy of yesteryear, while ignoring the contributions of the popular cultural renaissance developing today in Israel, which includes a revival of the humanistic Hebrew culture from the period of the Yishuv (“the movement for humanistic Judaism”). This is because it apparently competes with them and aspires to vanquish them in a competition for a solution different in kind. In this sense, one can see in the new policy of globalization a return to the melting-pot policy in a different form: not direct compulsion through the state’s political authority, but a generous suggestion, like a gift that one cannot refuse, for the sake of the individual happiness of the individuals and the prosperity of the state. The meaning of this ironic dialectic is revealed in defining the role and status that the vision of the multicultural society assigns to the values of material civilization, its education, its skill-set, its institutions, its morality, its laws, and its justice in accordance with its needs, relative to the status and role that it defines for spiritual values. As we recall, the policy of globalization applies the principle of priority of the good of the individual to the good of the collective. It denies the assumption that a nation, as a collective entity, has its own identity, and that in this respect it is more than the weighted combination of the identities of the individuals comprising it. This is, as we said, a conception of nationality that denies from the outset the obligating authority of tradition, humanistic culture, and religion. Like the totality of values and contents of civilization, so the totality of values and contents of religion, tradition, and culture are in its eyes a large ensemble of beliefs and opinions, customs and symbols, values and principles, which one should regard as a commodity in the marketplace for the benefit of whoever wishes to buy. The price must be determined like the price of any merchandise—according to the laws of supply and demand (their rating!). The critique that the authors of the policy of the globalist multicultural society directed against the melting-pot policy is thus rooted in the globalist-inspired Israeli Basic Law of Human Dignity and Liberty (of 1992). It seeks to defend the postmodern liberal idea, that it is the individual’s right to choose the “commodities” that define him spiritually: the nation-state and the institutions of the free society have no right to interfere in such matters. But there is another scientific professional secret that is revealed to the authors of this policy that is not revealed to ordinary people: the choices that people make are influenced, directly or indirectly, by objective cultural circumstances to which they must adapt, in accord with 138 eliezer schweid patterns that follow certain sociological and psychological laws. There- fore, whoever knows these laws and has sufficient control over shaping the general circumstances (the economy, internal affairs, and the like) can direct the free choice of citizens through calculated manipulation. In other words, just as the economy is a domain that one can control to a certain degree by a certain policy, so cultural preferences can be directed to the same extent. Not only does demand determine supply—through the consumers’ tastes—but seductive supplies determine demand, if the professional salesman, who knows his buyers, aims not only at their tastes, but at their imitative instincts. In this way it is possible to unite and consolidate the consuming public through the imperatives of fashion, while carefully observing the sanctity of their private freedom of choice. On closer examination, we find that it is easier to achieve the results of the melting-pot policy in this way than through strict enforcement of the policy. The buying public will yearn eagerly for what they rejected when it was imposed on them . . . But a difficulty presents itself here: When we are dealing with a vision of a civil society, it is impossible to restrict the marketing of spiritual goods. One must set norms of conduct that reflect in actuality a ladder of common values that is not exactly identical with the cultural ladder of values—whether the religious or the secular-humanistic. It is clear that negative legal definitions are insufficient. The cultural life of a society is conducted on the basis of creative give-and-take and obligatory mutual relations between persons. They form a common responsibility and endeavor to transmit lessons pertaining to the meaning of life and mankind’s destiny to create civilization and culture. Therefore it is a matter of supreme importance when we are speaking of a person’s obligation to his family, his friends, his community and his people, especially during a period when the people is standing in a life-or-death struggle for its future. Indeed, from the standpoint of the globalist worldview, nothing is more sacred than the marketplace and its rules, and there is no more sacred value than free competition; but faced with the subjective feelings of the majority of religious and humanistic people who have higher values, one cannot ignore them. One must present them in the form of general norms that can be acceptable as a common basis of all of them, on a personal basis transcending their affiliation to various spiritual movements. Who will define them? How will one define the contents, fundamental values, symbols, and rituals by which it will be possible to socialize all the humanism, globalization, postmodernism 139

consumers in the national marketplace of spiritual values, transcending the profound disagreements that they have on all national topics? The only source for an answer compatible with the principles of globalization might be the academic social and human sciences, which claim that their validity is not rooted, at least not apparently, in a subjective ideology or arbitrary authority, but in objective findings that document the values accepted as binding by all members of a given national group, beyond their disagreements, as they come to expression in their overall behavior. Just as the natural sciences determine by virtue of their objective truth what is proper technology, and all accept their verdict in order to employ it as they desire, and just as the social scientists determine by virtue of their objective truths—and apparently not by virtue of the consensus of economic institutions—what is a healthy economy, what is proper social stratification, and what is proper legislation governing all fields of activity, so do the humanistic sciences—history and the various branches of cultural criticism—determine, by virtue of their objective judgment, based on research, what are the values and selection of contents that determined in fact (not as a determination of “ought”) in the past, and continue to determine in the present, the national group identity, and therefore one should teach in a scientific and objective form the contents approved by them on the basis of their research, in a way that every individual, group, and movement can interpret them afterwards and apply them as they desire. Thus the unity of the nation and the freedom of individuals can both be preserved! Confirmation for the claim that this is ideology implemented in law, in the rules for shaping the national public square and its educational policy, is reflected in the obligation of academization that is imposed as an objective, necessary basis for the proper functioning of all the aspects of society mentioned above. This is the task of the educational system. On closer examination, we find that in the educational system, liberal globalization and academization are one and the same. Academization relates to the instructional curricula in all fields, to the methods of instruction, to teachers’ certification, and above all to the examinations by which the success of instruction is determined, as well as the success of the students’ learning, and the success of education, culminating in the certificate of academic matriculation, which embodies with suggestive power from which there is no escape or refuge, the whole educational ideology of the state Ministry of Education, and its entire praxis. All bow to it, and it determines that it is the task of the educational system to socialize all the 140 eliezer schweid students as individuals, each in accord with their abilities and free choice, to function properly in the marketplace, because this is in effect the desire of all the parents and students—all the producers and consumers. Its goal is that every individual in the society will enjoy equal opportunity to learn in the institution of higher learning a subject that will provide him with equal opportunity in the marketplace of remunerative and fulfilling jobs. Thus he will do for his personal happiness and the national happiness, and who knows if by virtue of this there will be a narrowing of the social gaps that the policy of globalization generates willy-nilly? But in order that the social framework should function properly, the indoctrination of the academic matriculation examination has determined that knowledge of correct Hebrew language, of Hebrew and world literature, a dollop of history seasoned with a pinch of Oral Torah, and especially political Zionism, are absolutely needed for the sake of the unity of the nation and the efficiency of the national market that sustains it, as the true source of its power and security. Academization is thus the scientific certificate of kashrut, above all ideology and subjectivity, as it were, stamped on all the educational-cultural lessons that globalization prescribes as a norm that it is mandatory (not merely advisable) to accept, just as every sick patient knows that for the sake of his health he must swallow the medicines that were prescribed for him by his expert doctor. The question that arises in the face of this academic ideology, with which the universities cooperate in order to merit their budget allocation from the state, is: What remains of the humanistic, religious, traditional and ethnic culture in the “culture basket” that the educational system is charged with selling? If you like, you can say: everything, and if you like, you can say: nothing. It all depends on how you relate to the concept of culture. If you choose the globalist conception, this concept will be defined in terms of the behavioral sciences as an ensemble of different kinds of behavioral norms, expressions, symbols, traditions, and game rules by which human beings like to live for the sake of their health and enjoyment. We emphasize: this is how culture appears in its spiritual dimensions, when it is examined and measured objectively from the outside: a museum, archive, library, bookstore, theatrical productions, prayers, and so forth, in all their variety, together with instructions for use for each item. If so, what is left for the scientists is to decide what will be the basic “culture basket” that should unify and consolidate the citizens of the country as members of a single nation; all the rest is left to choice and interpretation on the part of individuals or movements, on the humanism, globalization, postmodernism 141 assumption that this is not a national concern. In other words, in the bottom line, the principal national concern is not on the plane of the spiritual life, but on the plane of having an efficient and strong civilization, and so it is sufficient for the nation to have the cultural minimum that is necessary to serve its solidarity and efficiency as a civilization.1 It follows from this that calling the result of this policy a multicultural society serves more as a camouflage than a definition. In actuality, the multicultural policy strives for the same radical result as the melting-pot policy at an earlier stage, namely, full acculturation, but not through unification on a spiritual level, out of appreciation for the value of every spiritual culture in its own right, but rather through unification on the level of a homogeneous material civilization, to which the theorists of the multicultural society attribute supreme importance from a national standpoint, as well as from the standpoint of the happiness of individuals as individuals. The result must be—and signs of this culmination are already very much in evidence—raising the level of technical and functional efficiency of Israeli society, at the price of dumbing-down and impoverishing its spiritual life. But we should caution: all signs show that this procedure will not foster peace among all the strata, sectors, and spiritual movements, but the opposite: the identity of the material interests will exacerbate the competition in mutual disqualifications, and for its sake each sector will continue to demand imposition of its own ideology—which will become ever more shallow, mass-oriented, and combative—on the entire nation. For the same reason, it is doubtful if it will be possible to continue raising the scientific-technological level of the nation at the expense of dumbing down its spiritual-cultural level, because these are interdependent, and the slippery slope of mediocrity that the academy is sliding down, out of the need to fulfill the tasks that the policy of globalization imposes on it as a condition for its budgetary funding, proves the point. But the depth of the problem that is raised by the policy of globalization in the social-cultural sphere is that the conception of culture, presented by it in terms of behavioral science, does not do justice to the original philosophical definition of culture in either classic religious or humanistic thought.

1 As in his kibbutz days, Schweid was the idiosyncratic “tarbutnik,” the lonely advocate of culture, trying to sell it to his more practically minded comrades, so here too he butts heads with the practical advocates of material “civilization”! (LL) 142 eliezer schweid

Culture on the spiritual plane—the essence of spirituality requires this—is not to be identified with objective “products” such as books, the- atres, an index of customs or lists of information that one can acquire, and the like. Such goods are typical components of civilization, not of spiritual culture, unless they are accompanied by the intersubjective expression of contents drawn from such products, that is to say—the ever-renewing actuality of creation itself, from the side of the givers and the recipients. In this respect, culture is a web of intersubjective relations that express appreciation, identification, vision, destiny, meaning. The obligating force of these relations flows from their essence as relations rooted in human beings’ holistic relation to the nature surrounding them, by which they are sustained—but not only in the material sense—and to their human society, on which they depend for the market goods of production and consumption, but also for human togetherness, and the creativity that embodies it, and for the life of the spirit, inasmuch as it constitutes a creative power which they encounter face-to-face, internalizing it and creating by virtue of it—and are for that reason obligated towards it. This means that the notion of multicultural society according to the theory of globalization is only a reduction of the original notion of culture to its most trivial kernel, namely, the functionalist kernel that serves the needs of a civilization that strives for happiness in its material sense. One can derive from it, at most, a spiritual life on the “politically correct” level, or one of sentimental recreational enjoyment, for which the global communications industry educates its audience of listeners, who eagerly seek the “rating” of proven efficiency. When all the listeners “enjoy” and “are moved” to the point of experiencing “a fabulous time” together, it indeed creates a mass kind of national unity, especially when one enters the soc- cer or basketball stadiums, the temples of global competition, around the national picks of paid “stars,” representatives of the global village, waving their national banners in order to encourage the national victory by passive participation, with their passions and instinctual lusts engaged. But there will never be formed in this way a national collective of cultured people in solidarity, who are invested in their special and distinctive creative effort. This is thus a dangerous attempt to dumb down the spiritual life of a nation, to shut down the popular cultural renaissance, which could in the future generate a rich, pluralistic Jewish culture, and to exchange it for competitive “festivals” in the domain of spiritual life. This, then, is the challenge—charming and smiling on the outside, empty-souled on the inside—threatening the spiritual identity of the Jewish people, in Israel and in Diaspora. humanism, globalization, postmodernism 143

“Postmodern” Culture and Humanism

The liberal proponents of globalization still speak in the name of humanism as a brand-name that still has attractive power; but it is clear that its original meaning—creating the modern era that has now become old— has been put to rest, and nothing remains of it now except consciousness of the centrality of mankind in nature and his aspiration to happiness through self-realization. The difference between modern humanism and postmodern humanism will be highlighted from their contradictory answers to the question: “What is humanity’s unique self-realization, among all the creatures of nature?” Modern humanism saw the human being as a creature created “in God’s image” inasmuch as he was privileged with the endowment of spirit that provides him with a purpose and destiny in nature. In postmodernism, the word “spirit” is only a metaphor, whose meaning is vague, and the question, whether one can distinguish between spirit and body, also remains vague. Of course, all persons experience their spirituality. But if spirit is identified with intelligence, which permits human beings an increasing measure of freedom to posit goals for themselves (not for nature!) and to realize them even in opposition to the nature that surrounds them, through intervention and control to the point of causing qualitative changes in nature, then the meaning is that human beings developed, in the course of evolution from the time that they were monkeys, certain kinds of intelligence that provides them, working collectively, with absolute advantages in certain domains, such as science and technology. To be sure, this fact does not distinguish them essentially as individuals from the creatures found under them in the ladder of evolution. The difference between them is only quantitative, and so it does not furnish the “human spirit” with a status different from the other functions of his living body. If people nevertheless tend to see themselves from their own perspective as nature’s “chosen,” this is because by pooling their resources they managed to arrive at first place in the competition for control over their life environment, and in this way they turned their environment, with all the living creatures in it, into a great aggregate of resources that was “destined,” as it were, to satisfy their needs and give them pleasure; for whoever gets in their way, people fight with increasing effectiveness and make an effort to wipe them out entirely (for instance, the insects that are a pest in fields and houses). For yes, even in this respect human beings are similar to all other creatures in fighting for their place in the ladder of evolution. 144 eliezer schweid

Nevertheless, it is clear that in creating a civilization that has the power to dominate an entire territory—spreading their rule over the whole globe of the earth, and even invading outer space—human beings manifest an essential difference which may be regarded as a quantum leap in evolution. The difference can be seen in the kind of competitive drive that operates in human beings. The enjoyment that lower animals derive from satisfying their needs serves their health and their reproduction—that is to say, it serves their individual and collective survival in nature—but it does not function as a goal in itself, or scarcely so. But among human beings, in each unique individual living for himself, the pleasure derived from each of the bodily functions, including intelligence, becomes an existential need, in which they realize themselves in their uniqueness— pleasure for its own sake, their own exclusive pleasure in themselves for themselves, pleasure for its sake and for their sake. One must emphasize: this need cannot be satisfied except in civilization, because its satisfaction increases the quantity of abundance necessary for human beings above and beyond what nature in its raw state, without artificial intervention through ever-advancing technology, can provide. We note that this difference, which was in fact generated by the evolution of humanity relative to other animals, is not only quantitative but also qualitative, and it includes the urge to diverge from nature without leaving it, in other words, to remain in it without being ruled by it, and even to be able to act against it, if there is a need to do so for the sake of an immediate benefit that is measured by the value of survival and the enjoyment of it. In other words, human beings who aspire to enjoyments for their own sake, start to see in them the self-fulfillment that is unique to them as these unique individuals, toward which they aspire together as a group. Together they seek to sever the primal natural tie between the functions of physical existence and survival, that the enjoyments serve, and the enjoyments themselves, fraught with a distinctive value in which meaning is embodied—for the awareness of enjoyment from the enjoyment is its meaning. If we delve deeper into the meaning of these assertions, we will be convinced that man’s knowledge of the special creative intelligence, in which he is distinguished from other animals as a “spirit” separate from its body, follows from its manifestation in our consciousness as a fateful purpose of life in its own right, when he prefers it as the supreme objective of his life inasmuch as it is the source for satisfying all his other objectives. But we note that ontologically the human being can anchor the separateness of his or her spirit as a trans-physical reality only in relation to the human humanism, globalization, postmodernism 145 collective in which one grew up as a personality and not only as a libidinal “ego”: one’s family, one’s community, one’s people. For indeed, this person’s spirituality did not come into being at bodily conception, but it proceeds from an innate ability to internalize outside the womb spiritual contents that subsist in actuality before one’s birth as the heritage of the group in which one is raised. This is the basis of the assumption of the priority of the collective entity, conceived by the religious and humanistic outlooks as a reality that takes precedence over the individuals who comprise it. From here follows the fact that the breakup of the collective entity into its components and denying its priority over the individuals who comprise it dissolves man’s transcendental spiritual consciousness. In other words, when a person lives for him- or herself as a libidinal ego, s/he is possessed of a self-consciousness that is not “spirit” by itself. Only as a member of a society, whose transcendental supremacy he recognizes does a person become conscious of having spirit.2

The human being’s ability to unite with others in their aspiration to live by themselves in the reflexive enjoyment of their respective enjoyments gains him a great advantage over all other animals, also with respect to the libidinal motivations manifested in civilization. But in that way there develops a sui generis dilemma: inasmuch as every enjoyment stands by itself in its moment and immediately passes away, the adherents of enjoyment for itself have need of more and more enjoyments, all of which need to persist and even to increase in order to arrive at that self-fulfillment defined as happiness. People are conditioned psychologically to pursue pleasure and to seek enjoyment, but not of the pleasure that they already enjoy, but of the vision of its persistence and extension to infinity, that is to say, far beyond the limited portion of satisfaction that they need as animals for the needs of their survival and the survival of their species. This is a frightful dilemma, because the competitive urge to happiness rooted in them does not arrive, and can never arrive, at satiety. Just the opposite: the more that one succeeds in satisfying the urge to happiness for a moment, the greater grows the need to insure its satisfaction at least on the same level in the future, and even to amplify it. For that reason civilization, which is the condition

2 The preceding paragraph articulates the notion of spirit that Krochmal adopted from Hegel but to which he gave a Jewish reading. See Schweid, The Idea of Modern Jewish Culture, 50–54; A History of Modern Jewish Religious Philosophy, vol. 1, 304–7; Krochmal, A Guide to the Perplexed of the Time, chaps. 6–7. (LL) 146 eliezer schweid for the hope to achieve such a kind of happiness, only strengthens the yearning and correspondingly postpones the possibility of its satisfaction, especially when one directs the desire for existentially self-confirming enjoyment to bodily pleasures rather than to spiritual pleasures.

At this point we shall return to our examination of the postmodern concept of humanism and we shall give our opinion concerning the two dimensions of human distinctiveness that were defined above: the indi- viduality of self-fulfillment, and its infinite character. To this we shall add the implication of human beings remaining animals, like all other animals, with respect to their basic needs that condition their survival in nature, over which they exercise control. To the extent that they succeed in controlling nature, they become more dependent on it as the exclusive source from which they derive enjoyment: if they annihilate it, God forbid, or ruin it, it will put an end to their happiness, and what is worse, they will perish, together with all the rest of nature’s creatures, which they have turned into resources without rights to their own happiness. It is obvious that this anthropology, which is based on Darwinist biology and on behaviorist psychology, is identified with the psycho-social mode of analysis which animates the globalist free-market economy. As we recall, the free-market economy is built on perpetual “growth,” which is conditioned on the limitless increase of production of articles of enjoyment that are without limit in their quantity and variety. The increase of production is conditional, of course, on a quantitative and qualitative increase of consumption without limit. Production for its own sake and consumption for its own sake—these are the values that bring about ever- increasing prosperity, whose entire purpose is to satisfy enjoyment for its own sake, all the time enjoyment for its own sake, more and more enjoyment for its own sake, at the cost of more and more resources that have no right to exist for themselves. We have pointed out the dilemma bound up in conditioning human happiness on perpetual and ever-increasing enjoyment. We have pointed out, too, the danger in exhausting irreplaceable resources. But we should also pay attention to the meaning of turning enjoyment of people’s functions of bodily life, including their intelligence, into a goal in itself—and even the supreme goal—subordinating under it all the other vital goals of human beings’ survival in nature. It becomes clear that the more that one devotes oneself to realizing this one goal, not only does one distance oneself from the primal natural rationale of enjoyment—satisfying people’s survival needs—but one starts to operate against them, not only because humanism, globalization, postmodernism 147 of the squandering of resources and environmental destruction, but also because by displacing one’s interest from the natural functioning necessary for survival to the enjoyment of satisfying its requirements, the natural functions themselves are neglected (for example, forgoing the function of childbearing for the sake of enjoying sexual pleasure for its own sake). Even worse: pursuing satisfaction in excess of the functional needs of the body turns one’s own body into the prime object of one’s exploitation; thus one begins to destroy oneself through physical, psychological, and social diseases (such as the destruction of family and communal life), and this certainly does not contribute to happiness. The result that follows from this is that cultured human beings need to invest more and more effort to overcome the stumbling-blocks that they themselves put on their path to achieving happiness, until it is hard to decide whether in their success in achieving more enjoyments from satisfaction of their basic needs they have become happier or more wretched. But it is likely that they still have the hope that if they produce and consume even more commodities—with which perhaps they will correct what they ruined by the over-consumption of the previous commodities—they will arrive finally to paradise on earth, to which they aspire. Out of part delusion, part the intuition that enjoyments are addictive, most people are forced to pursue them even with the knowledge that they will never attain them. They continue to strive for this happiness even while it keeps receding, and now even the heavens themselves are not the limit.

In its origin, modern humanism grappled with the problem of man that derived from his relation to himself and to nature, in the same way that the monotheistic religions grappled with the same problem. To be sure, humanism developed during the “Renaissance”—in the sense of “rebirth,” from man’s natural and cultural sources, in the sense of a “return to nature”—in opposition to a religion that strove for spiritual, supra-worldly happiness. In place of the moral norms that were dictated by the revelation of a supra-worldly God, modern humanism sought the definition of humanity’s destined goals and the norms for realizing them in nature. Indeed, it is instructive that these were the same destined goals that were defined by the monotheistic religions, and the same norms of morality that obligated human beings to seek happiness not only for their own private sake but for the sake of all human beings and for the sake of all nature’s creatures. For that reason, the solutions that humanism sought for the problems of civilization and for life in it are substantially similar to those of the religious worldview, according to which humanity was created 148 eliezer schweid in the divine image, that is to say, as a creature who was endowed with a spirituality that was transcendental to his body, and altogether distant from the postmodern worldview implemented by the globalist market economy. What is the primary root of this divergence between original humanism and postmodern globalist humanism? It is the reversal of the relation between “civilization” in the sense of an assembly of tools, in which mankind subdue nature (also their own nature, when they serve their tools) and “culture” in its spiritual sense. Original humanism invested major efforts in the sciences and technology. It set itself the goal of developing a thriving worldly civilization. It saw in its thriving an important component in mankind’s worldly destiny (and it is worthwhile to note that original humanism spoke always of “Man” as a general concept—denoting the human species, and not individual persons, each standing firstly for himself). But it nevertheless identified humanity’s superior role in nature with its spiritual gifts: the power of thought, which strives for the truth as a value for its own sake; the power of creativity, which strives for expression in the good and beautiful for their own sake. A person’s happiness insofar as he or she is a human being (to distinguish from his happiness insofar as he is an animal like the others of his species) is thus identified in original humanism with the achievements of knowing the truth and expressing himself in creative works with spiritual meaning. This did not imply any denigration of physical pleasure, as was the case with the Christian Church. On the contrary. Worldly humanism looked to the spiritual meaning of bodily enjoyment. That is to say, not to maximize it to infinity, but to symbolize it to infinity, so that bodily satisfaction will be conceived as a means to a proper life of body and spirit. Not as a goal in itself. Furthermore, defining the spiritual as the supreme value did not mean to disparage the value of scientific and technological creativity, but the opposite, to reveal the spiritual creative dimension embodied in it. But in this manner, a hierarchical and teleological order was established between two planes of human culture—the physical and the spiritual—that were independent and nourished each other. Civilization was the assemblage of the means that were subordinate to the spiritual creativity that was the end-goal. The latter, in turn, determined the objectives and the criteria by which civilization should be developed, in order that it should serve the spiritual happiness of mankind, which was true happiness. This ranking of preferences of modern humanism was put to the test at the very outset. It quickly became clear what the monotheistic religions humanism, globalization, postmodernism 149

(from which humanism was born) had taught from their confrontation with idolatry, which had identified with civilization and its enjoyments as the end-goal: the material-bodily values of civilization have a stronger power of attraction for most people. Moreover, when people devote themselves to it, they are forced to see in it and in its enjoyable products the goal of their life, for devotion to civilization is enslaving and addicting. The fateful struggle between the supremacy of civilization-over-culture and the supremacy of culture-over-civilization extends throughout the approximately two hundred years of the development of Western modernity. One could say that nature took its course, and that the material power of civilization prevailed gradually, step by step, until humanism in its original sense was forced to fight for the last remnant of its leadership in the academy, in the educational hierarchy, in the parties and government. It was subdued from within by philosophies that assumed that one could arrive at the flourishing of spiritual culture only by tending to the material civilization as a prior goal, for “existence determines consciousness.” A description of this historical process in its details is not our concern. It is enough to point out how the crisis of humanism came to its climax in the period between the two world wars. Materialistic Commu- nism and Fascism—the two greatest anti-humanist movements that rose to power—hailed the supremacy of material civilization and its values. Humanism was still represented by liberal and social-democratic states and movements, but they also based themselves more and more in practice on the values of imperialistic civilization, striving for rule of the world (globalization!), for from it they drew the power that was required for their Pyrrhic victory in the war against Nazism and Communism. From this ensued the result that I described in the first part of this essay: in World War II, the values of material civilization won their final victory over the values of spiritual culture. Even the liberal states, who defined themselves as humanistic, bowed to this fateful decree. They continued to pride themselves on humanism and proclaimed it by giving international sanction to the Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations, but if we judge by the criterion of humanism in its original sense, this was also a Pyrrhic victory. Humanism celebrated its decisive defeat as if it were its victory. Human beings, as sovereign individuals in their awareness and self-image, were placed in the center, while realizing themselves through an aggressive, mighty civilization. But in fact they condemned themselves to serve that same civilization and to turn themselves into functions of its technologies, which dominated their lives for the sake of 150 eliezer schweid the bodily happiness of all its members, which would never be achieved, because by devoting themselves to serving the technologies that were to bring them happiness, they turned themselves from subjects into objects (of themselves). With these words we descend into the deeper meaning of the revolution that occurred in the academy by defining the tasks and methodologies of the social sciences: accepting the norm, according to which one should determine the life-norms in the society which serves the civilization (which was intended to serve it!) not according to what ought to be from a moral-spiritual subjective standpoint, that is to say, not according to the subjective aspirations of human beings as individuals, members of families, of communities, of a nation and of humanity (all of these as collective entities), but according to objective behavioral criteria, which teach how most human beings behave for the most part when they respond to natural urges that are to be identified with the fixed, stable objective kernel of human subjectivity—the urges of the ego and the libidinal drives. By these one should establish the social orders of life of an efficient civilization—a civilization that strives to measurable happiness in the present, not to a visionary, incommensurable happiness in the distant future, but out of the knowledge that this happiness must be increased quantitatively and qualitatively from one present to the next present, and in every present till infinity.

In this paradoxical irony is embodied the result of the reversal of relations, from having civilization as means to the cultural end-goal of humanism, to having culture as the means to the civilization of globalization as “post- humanism.” Thus we pass to the topic of the connection between globalization in the economy, society and politics, and cultural postmodernism, as it comes to expression in the phenomenalistic and linguistic philosophies, in literature, poetry, music, and plastic arts. At first examination, cultural postmodernism, which tends to absolute subjectivity in everything that comes out of it—deconstructionism in interpreting the texts of the sources of humanistic culture, relativism with respect to the values of humanism, refutation of the concept of humanistic history, exaggeration to the fantastic and arbitrary in art—seems to contradict the scientific assumptions that civilization and postmodernism are based on. But it is an established historical fact that cultural postmodernism appeared at the same time as the establishment of globalist civilization, and this civilization constitutes in fact the Sitz im Leben that made possible and necessary the growth of a satellite culture that should humanism, globalization, postmodernism 151 constitute a substitute for the happiness and freedom that it promised to provide here and now, again and again in every present, but did not succeed in providing despite its mighty material achievements. Two facts leap out at us, regarding the symbiosis of globalist civilization and postmodern culture, which at first sight stand in contradiction to one another. First, the point of origin of each is absolute individualism: individuals claim absolute sovereignty for themselves, their personalities, their actions, and their happiness. To be sure, in the case of civilization it is a matter of the right to objective material achievement, whereas in culture it is a matter of subjective spiritual achievement. But on the other hand, it is an objective fact that all human beings are subjects, and that their happiness is a subjective experience, even when we assume that all are made happy by the same enjoyments. Second, postmodern philosophers and creative artists honor the natural sciences and the statistical human sciences, and they do not challenge their objective validity and their right to determine the framework within which human beings “need” to live, for only by them are they apt to realize their freedom that they have as subjects. This is a fact that generally does not receive enough attention because of the sweeping character of the claim that every person has his or her own truth, and therefore one must emphasize it: postmodern philosophies apply themselves and function only in the realm of cultural creativity, and they take a position on matters of morality and policy, but they do not offer an opinion on matters of the economy, administration, law, and justice, from a professional standpoint, except for the requirement that they should grant the creative artist the freedom to decide how he will benefit himself and the people who have recourse to his creation, for this is his area of professional expertise. The reason is clear—without a consensual scientific foundation in the natural and social sciences, there cannot be intersubjective discourse among human beings. Without it, they cannot base any arguments at all, including the argument that “everything” is subjective, and in speaking to one another (as artists, they are engaged in communication), they will not understand each other. Moreover, the tools that they require in their creative art, and the social and political institutions that enable them to create and communicate, are all based on the natural, social, and administrative sciences. The claim of absolute subjectivity as a kind of freedom and redemption is thus implemented by postmodern culture only on the plane of its experiential objective: creating pure sensory, emotional, and intellectual enjoyments, which are experienced for their own sake. In order to attain 152 eliezer schweid this objective with professional efficiency, one requires maximal intensity in the use of words, sounds, and rhythms, for on the plane of subjective experience—which is experienced beyond the plane of everyday reality—the level of intensity is identified with the level of identification, to the point of complete solidarity of the enjoying “I” with the experience that affords it enjoyment—for only thus is true enjoyment attained. Humanistic art could be satisfied with symbolizing realities that transcended matter and body; but postmodern art needs to achieve its objective through simulating objective physical reality itself. The psycho- physical reason for this is quite clear: a living creature enjoys the object of its enjoyment—that is to say, counts it as enjoyment—only on condition that it is real, not imagined. It enjoys real eating, real drinking, real sex. These real enjoyments are directly connected to the natural functions of survival, even if the person who seeks to enjoy these pleasures is no longer interested in these functions for their own sake, and often explicitly wishes to be rid of them. A perfect likeness of enjoyment can thus bring about the “enjoyment of enjoyment” only if it succeeds in creating a perfect illusion of sensory, emotional, or intellectual reality, which will nevertheless remain an illusion. (Incidentally, this is the reason for the widespread reliance on drugs in the popular sphere of postmodern culture!) The postmodern artist can therefore not be content—as the religious or humanist artist was—with imitation and symbolization of objective reality of everyday life. He must re-create it, through a sophisticated employment of means that he borrows from it and psychological effects that he learns from psychology. In other words, to borrow the language of computer science, postmodern art celebrates the subjective experience of freedom by being able to create a new virtual reality, in keeping with a code of reality that this art is interested in, with the same power to convince as the daily life of nature and civilization, but different entirely with respect to the code that confers meaning on it. Only through this dialectical combination do the artist and his audience of connoisseurs experience the experience of their freedom as subjects, imagining that they are sovereign in creating the plane of reality in which they are living, including their image of themselves within it, as they choose to be, rather than as they are in nature. These reflections should illuminate the concrete connection between postmodern artistic culture and the postmodern sciences and technology that facilitate turning these abstract ideas into a convincing illusory reality. We have resorted here to the computer-scientific expression of virtual reality. But with respect to the interest of the postmodern artist and thinker, it humanism, globalization, postmodernism 153 is more important to consider the connection between the virtual projection on the computer screen and nature as it is in itself, even though one can only see it through the simulation of thought. The deeper distinction is between the representation of reality by phe- nomenological projection, such as when art imitates nature, and its representation by mathematical formulas or fictive graphs. At the base of this distinction is the revolutionary development that took place in the natural sciences, especially postmodern physics and cosmology, creating a gap between phenomenal natural reality, which human beings experience and which comprises the world of their everyday sensory, libidinal, emotional and intellectual-evaluative life, and physical reality as mankind knows it through tools that permit him to probe and measure it, though without seeing, hearing, smelling, or touching it. As scientist (or as one with a scientific education), postmodern man lives in the wake of this development in the two planes of life that are causally bound up with each other yet remain distinct. Like all animals, he continues to be a biological and social creature who responds to his environment as it appears to him through his senses—according to the promptings of his instincts, emotions, beliefs and subjective values, which he shapes out of direct experience of his phenomenal environment. Nevertheless, he knows that it is so only from his subjective perspective, which is forced on him, whereas as a scientist he lives in an objective physical world, concealed from his senses, but on a profound level exercising control over all the movements of his body and the natural environment surrounding him. As we said, from a subjective perspective the phenomenal environment is objective, and our objective physical knowledge is subjective. That is to say, in order to live within this double reality and to enjoy it, we must unify it not only on the plane of knowledge but also on the plane of experience. This can be achieved only through an artistic fiction, which fashions—beyond the plane of objective phenomenal existence—an illusory yet convincing phenomenal existence, which can be experienced as if real. One should emphasize at this point that the postmodern artist is not a scientist. He only makes secondary use of science for his needs. He is also not a technician, but he makes secondary use of technology for his objectives. He seeks to act on the senses, on emotion, on imagination, and on free thought—on himself and on his audience—and to create a world that provides enjoyment for its own sake (that is to say, a reflexive enjoyment of primary enjoyment) in one of two ways: simulation of absolute sensory- emotional enjoyment, or simulation of a spiritual adventure that can be 154 eliezer schweid experienced for its own sake. An additional conclusion follows from this: unlike the scientist and technician, the artist does not aspire to intervene in nature and in the phenomenal existence of daily life, but the opposite: he strives to be liberated from them in order to fashion a world of his own desire, a world in which he will not be limited in any respect—not from satisfying his libidinal pleasures, if that is what he wants, nor from satisfying his rich imagination or his intellectual sophistication—each as values in their own right. In the world that the artist creates for himself, including whoever wants to take part in it, he is the sole sovereign, and they can be sole sovereigns the same as him. Thus, when they live in their imagination through objects that they produced in their imagination, they are not required to observe any self-limitation or consideration for the satisfaction of the desires of others. The absolute subject, sitting in front of the television screen, is engaged at that hour only with such persons and other creatures as he gives life to in his imagination—and only in this respect do they live—even though, if one wishes to enjoy the fruits of one’s imagination as if they were real, one should make a strong effort to forget this fact. The explicit condition that follows from this to attainment of happiness from postmodern art is liberation from responsibility, that is to say, absolute abandonment of the religious aspiration “to perfect the world under the Kingdom of the Almighty” and the humanistic aspiration “to perfect the world under the kingdom of humanity.” For objective existence, tangible, in nature and civilization, is entrusted to the scientists and technicians, the administrators and politicians—all these who divide among themselves the dominion over the objective powers, and who serve the subjective goals for which the majority of human beings strive in actuality.

In these observations we will find the response to the question that was posed at the start of this discussion of the dialectical connection between postmodern artistic culture and globalization, which provides it with its Sitz im Leben. As we said, it is rooted in a contradiction that was generated within postmodern civilization, between direct dependence on the forces of nature and mankind’s instincts to survive in nature, and the deviation from nature for the sake of seeking happiness for its own sake through exploitative intervention in nature, with a tendency opposed to the tendency of survival inherent in it, in order to provide enjoyments which indeed are inherent in nature, but seeking them for their own sake makes them artificial, hence arbitrary—and as such, destructive. We saw that the contradiction is not solved either on the level of postmodernism’s material civilization or its spiritual culture. Just the humanism, globalization, postmodernism 155 opposite—it gets progressively worse, and thus unequivocally refutes the rationale that postmodernism clings to on the socioeconomic and political plane, as on the cultural plane. As we saw, the onesidedness of this rationale, its lack of consideration for humanity’s spiritual-ethical nature, leads to human self-destruction and environmental destruction, and certainly does not bring happiness either to the masses, who become ever poorer and more exploited, or to the rich, who become richer but more enslaved to their wealth. The conclusion is thus that postmodern culture is an effort, absurd from the outset, to enable the continued functioning of a civilization that provides it with a Sitz im Leben and sustains it by satisfying virtual substitutes for what this civilization itself cannot satisfy, although it was founded, apparently, in order to provide happiness that should follow on everyone’s enjoyments. Postmodern culture grapples with this absurdity with means that it forged in parallel with the tools of production of that mighty civilization, but we saw that the tools that it forged contain within themselves the absurdity that it tries to escape. Thus this culture serves its civilization doubly: as a justification for its victims, whose happiness was denied them, leaving them without rescue or recourse, and as providing a libidinal, sensory, emotional “catharsis” to those disappointed few who go back again and again to enjoy it, remaining hungry and thirsty as they were, and hop- ing that next time they will be more satisfied than they were the previous time. (Incidentally, this is the reason why in fashioning postmodern culture, it is forbidden to repeat the same technical tricks; a postmodern trick can interest and arouse emotions only when it comes as a surprise!) Nevertheless, people who are conditioned to live in their civilization as it is, prefer to live at the entrance to this imagined paradise-on-earth, wide as the television or movie screen, because all in all it is easier to live in a rich material civilization that, though it is disappointing, still provides (at least for the moment) to the successful the material goods needed for daily life, and the illusions of happiness that they consume in mighty quantities, than to live in a humanistic civilization, which would require continual grappling with the requirements of morality that are a requirement for its continuance, in which they would have to labor considerably in order to merit real happiness.

Two kinds of spiritual creativity comprise postmodern culture as it addresses two audiences: the creativity that seeks to satisfy the needs of illusory recreation for the masses, whose objective is to represent paradise on earth, and the creativity that addresses individuals who yearn for spiritual life for its own sake, while grappling with spiritual challenges for their 156 eliezer schweid own sake. Thus we have the culture of commercial ratings, and the culture of sophisticated refinement, addressed to an esoteric audience. Each of these two kinds has its own poetics, but to deal with them adequately would require another framework, and it digresses from the domain of our discussion of postmodernism as it concerns humanity and the Jewish people. The question that arises in this context is: How much longer will it be possible to sustain life within this virtual bubble, knowing that the people who live in it are creatures of nature, sustained by nature at its cost—that is to say, at the cost of its rules of survival and in opposition to them? How much longer will it be possible to continue squandering the resources of nature and systematically destroying it, while experiencing superficial imaginary happiness within a trans-natural bubble, in order to create the illusion of humanity’s control over its fate? The processes that we diagnosed above, whether in the virtual “global village,” the creature of communication, or in the Jewish world, in Israel and in Diaspora, teach us first, that postmodern culture cannot answer to the needs that religious and humanistic culture tried to answer to, in their aspirations to perfect the world and to perfect real, existing humanity—even if (we should admit) with only partial and limited success. Second, without striving continually, without limit, to realizing the humanistic and religious- humanistic ideals, which indeed can never be realized once and for all or completely, neither human civilization nor culture will have a future. The conclusion—admittedly subjective—that I derive from this analysis is that the ethical-monotheistic religions’ idea of God, and humanism’s idea of humanity as a collective entity prior to its members, are necessary for humanity’s survival in nature and for nature’s survival under the rule of humanity, for the sake of their happiness. Knowledge of God as a spiritual-ethical power, and knowledge of humanity as an all-embracing social circle, in which the human species accepts direct responsibility for itself and for nature, are the powers that represent and determine the limits of arbitrary freedom that man may permit himself in imagining himself as sovereign. For all humanity’s trans-natural power is borrowed from nature, and they are incapable of recreating it anew. Knowledge of God and knowledge of humanity are the spiritual powers that limit man as a creature who is capable of autonomy, if he makes a strong effort to master his lusts—but he will never arrive at total sovereignty. Just the opposite—if he pretends to total sovereignty and tries to realize it, he will lose his ethical-spiritual autonomy and destroy his natural environment, for in fact he is obligated to obey absolute (and in that sense, objective) humanism, globalization, postmodernism 157 moral imperatives in order to survive in nature and to preserve nature itself in a form that will enable it to answer mankind’s special needs up to a certain point. This is the challenge to humanity’s survival, and this is necessarily the challenge for the survival of the Jewish people and to the continuation of its distinctive contribution to the cultures of humanity. We saw above that the seductive power of globalization and of postmodern culture for the Jewish people is enormous. Just as globalization made assimilation easier, but also enabled the preservation of a certain distinctiveness among Jews who chose it for the sake of their subjective spiritual happiness, so postmodernism facilitates integration in the international culture, in its mass-commercial and elite-refined forms, while preserving elements of distinctiveness on both these levels. But just as postmodern culture is only a simulation of humanism, not true humanism directed at the perfection of the world, so a Judaism that can be preserved in this kind of culture for the sake of recreational or spiritual experience will be in the same vein: a Judaism neutralized of its essential ingredient—the aspiration to perfect the world through halakha—that is to say, by taking on responsibility for fulfilling the mitzvot, not only the ritual ones but the ethical-social ones. Judaism that is not responsibility for perfecting the world through deeds will be only a virtual Judaism, and it will dissolve like the smile of the Cheshire cat when it starts to bore its audience and they feel the need for another fashionable spirituality, which has just appeared in the rich and “awesome” global marketplace.

Jewish intellectuals of a previous generation would conclude this kind of inquiry with the phrase beloved of halakhic scholars: sh’ma minah—learn from this!

The Drama of Secular History: The Return to Nature and Exit from the Other Side*

Eliezer Schweid

On the Birth of Secularism and the Purpose of This Essay

Modern secularism, as theory and practice, was conceived and launched by the twin movements of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, at the beginning of the modern age. It expressed a process of reorientation in Western culture, namely, its emancipation from spiritual servitude to the heaven-oriented idealism of the Christian church, while giving legitimacy to the view that happiness in this world, as it was, should be the goal of human life. This was a revolt against the Christian churches, both Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox, which ruled by force and—though formerly allies of the secular power—had now become its opponents. The Church maintained a pious, otherworldly pose while accumulating awesome economic and political power. In the view of its Enlightenment- minded critics, the Church—in its corruption and hypocrisy—afforded worldly prosperity to its priestly hierarchy, while denying it to the popular masses, giving them in its stead promises of a portion in Paradise. According to the alliance enacted between the Christian Church and the Roman Empire in the time of Constantine the Great, in the early 300s, the worldly empire was granted authority over the worldly civilization, with the help of the Church that represented it on earth. More precisely, the Church presented itself as an institutionalized embodiment of the promise of salvation from Jesus, Son of God. Jesus came down from heaven to earth in order to atone by his death for Adam’s sin. By returning to his Father in Heaven, he saved the souls of humanity, who from the prison of their corporeality believed in him and responded to his Gospel. But the work of salvation was not complete. The cursedness of the earth and the sinful corporeality of mankind remained as they were. In order to complete his mission, a second coming of the Savior was required. Until then, the status quo continued. The universal Church, which was the embodiment of Jesus’ first mission, would save the souls of human

* Originally published in Eliezer Schweid, Bikoret hatarbut haḥilonit (Critique of Secu- lar Culture) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2008), 41–95. 160 eliezer schweid beings by the strength of their faith and the power of its sacraments. All individuals were equal before God, and they would receive their reward in Paradise in accordance with their faith and piety, not in accord with their material success in this world. It was the task of the Church to teach faith in the Savior, to sanctify the believers through the sacraments, to educate them to observe the laws and morals, to perform works of charity among the people, and to promise them hope in this world and eternal spiritual bliss in the World to Come. But the universal heavenly Church does not abolish corporeal mankind’s belonging to families, communities, peoples and states, for these are necessary for their survival in the terrestrial world. In order to enable them to survive, the Church, acting in God’s name, appointed the secular kingdom and divided duties between herself and it. The priestly hierarchy of the Church was assigned to matters of moral and spiritual education, which included all knowledge necessary and fitting for humanity. The Church conducts the religious ritual, establishes and runs the institutions of charity and good works, and supports the armies of monks who are obedient to her word. The monks, in their lifetimes, abstain from sensory delights and sanctify themselves to Christ through fasting, prayer, and good works. The kingdom is entrusted with matters of worldly civilization as instruments of its rule. As it must contend with the nature of this cursed world, it must resort to means of force and effective punishment. The kingdom rules with an iron hand. There is in this a certain amount of cruelty for the cruel and wickedness for the wicked, but this is an undeniable necessity. As opposed to the kingdom, the Church has no need of such means. Even against heretics, it exercises the secular state on its behalf; as for itself, it only acts in kindness. To be sure, the Church authorizes the King and his servants to employ the means of justice that the state controls, so that the kingdom shall defend the worldly interests of the Church, including persecution of heretics and persuasion of pagans to abandon their sinful religions and to believe in Christ through the Church. For in order to fulfill her tasks, the Church has need of worldly estates, no less wealthy and strong than the kingdom. . . This is a dialectic of relations that embrace an inner contradiction. The universal, supra-terrestrial Church, exuding faith, mercy, and kindness, quickly became an economic, political, and even military player, competing with the state, setting limits to it, and sometimes even acting against it. But even then the Church justified itself by a hierarchical distinction: the Church represented the holy “Kingdom of Heaven,” whereas the “earthly kingdom” represented secular civilization. the drama of secular history 161

The idea of modern secularization is thus rooted in the distinction between the two kingdoms. The novelty was the yearning to change the status of worldly civilization relative to the status of the heavenly Church. Rather than the holy Church lording itself over the secular kingdom, the secular kingdom needed to lord itself over the Church. This meant reversing the status of the worldly civilization relative to the priestly hierarchy, which by the power of its worldliness (which was dedicated to heaven) had started to suppress the scientific and technological development of the secular civilization. In order to remove these chains, the rebels argued that worldly, bodily-spiritual happiness was not a sin but virtue. On the contrary, monkish abstinence, ignoring beauty, and refraining from natural sensory pleasure, were a sin against nature, against natural man, and also against God, who had created all of these for the good of His creatures. The military, political, social, and cultural war, for the sake of implementing the modern secular idea, was waged in all domains of life of the European nations. It extended through the eighteenth, the nineteenth, and the first half of the twentieth centuries. From the point of view of its representatives, it was completed in our age, with the complete victory of the secular idea. The Church was separated from the state. For its believers, it still constituted religion. But it had no right to employ means of enforcement and to intervene in matters of government without permission, for its legitimacy derived from the people. The concern of the Church was limited to relations between its believers and God. The conduct of worldly life in the domain of the spirit was entrusted to democratic institutions, based on freedom of thought, freedom of research, and freedom of technological development for the common good. The all-embracing goal that was implemented in this way was happiness in its worldly sense, including enjoyment of body and soul, out of the idealistic striving for balance between them, but with emphasis on the pleasures of the body, which included the reward for efforts in the domain of spiritual achievements. The victory of the modern secular idea is expressed in its application in all domains of life, and in civilization, whose spirit (science, technology, and art) was harnessed to maximizing material achievements and subduing nature in order to satisfy man’s bodily needs. But Christianity was not abolished. It became clear that religion had a strong hold on human nature. Religion satisfied a deep psychological need whose source was in the war for survival conducted in nature. From this followed the conclusion that the religions should be harnessed to the chariot of worldly 162 eliezer schweid happiness by subordinating them to the worldly kingdom. This idea, too, was applied in Western countries consistently and successfully. Indeed, after the victory of secularism problems arose, no less severe than those that followed from the dominance of the Church over the state, but the situation that prevails in Western culture today is the opposite of the one that prevailed in the Middle Ages. The secular state is sovereign, and religion is a social institution within the limits of the law of the land, the same as all other social institutions. Has humanity been saved from its sins? Has the proclamation that worldly happiness is not a sin rescued humanity from the corruption bound up with it? The intellectual, social, and political struggle over the response to these questions has continued with full force around two ideological axes: (1) The debate between secular scientific fundamentalism and religious fundamentalism that developed in the religious institutions’ reaction against the secular siege that had been laid against them; (2) the debate between various tendencies seeking reorientation towards a secular religiosity, on the one hand, and tendencies of secular fundamentalism on the other. The most apparent result is the ideological confusion that attests to the general loss of orientation of Western culture in our age. The sign of the depth of these struggles is the fact that defining the essence of secularity, if we distinguish it from the religion that operates within it, is incoherent. To the questions: “What is secularism? How is Western secular culture different from other cultures that did not develop against the backdrop of Christianity, such as the Islamic, Hindu, or Buddhist cultures?”—most responders, whether secular or religious, will give a faint or confused answer. Only the confrontational distinction between secularity and religiosity remains clear and distinct. Most of the responders are content to offer the default answer that secularism is “not religious” or that it “denies religion.” But they do not know how to give a positive definition of the opposing essence that secularism proposes in place of religion, and so they mostly ignore the fact that most of those who define themselves as secular believe in God, preserve various rubrics of religious traditions, and observe religious practices; that some of them belong to movements defined as “modern religious,” that is to say, secular-religious. This means that most of those who define themselves as secular have forgotten, or do not know, the ideational-evaluative essence of the culture with which they identify. Thus they do not see in it the embodiment of a definite worldview or a leading idea. It seems that for the most part they do not ask what their culture is striving for or what is the meaning that it assigns to their lives. They identify with it, as it is, in the faith that if they serve it they will merit happiness, that is to say, the drama of secular history 163 wealth and power. Therefore they allow their civilization to sweep them into its eddies, devoid of moral-spiritual purpose, and thus they wander aimlessly, adrift from a moral or spiritual standpoint. These words are directed also to help religious citizens understand what their citizenship entails. They, too, fight for preservation of their secular rights by the state. It is doubtful if they understand their religiosity as their ancestors understood it, especially with respect to their relation to the secular culture, even though they vociferously refuse to admit how far they have strayed. Do the religious understand their religiosity more than the secular understand their secularity? It seems that this confusion gives rise to the tendency of the religious extremists, who strive for consistency in applying their religious worldview, to embrace fundamentalism. Their secularized environment is a threat to their identity, and inasmuch as they are not able to cut off their dependency on it, they erect an opaque spiritual barrier against it as much as possible and segregate themselves in their neighbor- hoods and in their sectarian organizations. In their thinking they deal only with themselves, but their stance has implications for their secular environment, which sees in their sectarian fundamentalism a threat against its universal scientific, technological, and political values. Since the dominant secular culture has raised moral and spiritual problems with which it has difficulty coping, using the legal, judicial, and educational means at its disposal, confusion sets in, along with divisive confrontation. The polarization between religious and secular parties grows apace, generating violent hatred. It threatens to break the bonds of solidarity among citizens and the sense of mutual responsibility between them and the state. No less severe is the loss of the benefit that a positive mutual relation between state and religion could have offered to the solution of the problems that neither religion nor secular culture are able to solve by themselves. The purpose of this essay is to deal with the confusion and unclarity that are at the root of this tangle; to reconstruct the original meaning of the idea of “secularism” as a positive worldview; to examine the developments and changes that occurred within secularism as it was being implemented; to diagnose the problems; and, finally, to suggest a direction in which there is a chance to find the way out of this confusion.

Prologue: The Beginning of the Drama in the Historical Myth of the Bible

Scientific historiography is one of the central expressions of implementing the idea of secularism in the spiritual dimension of modern culture. 164 eliezer schweid

It replaced the historical myth of the Holy Scriptures as the shaper of cultural-traditional memory—defining it, interpreting it, and conceiving the teleological regularity that determines its development. In place of the idea of divine creation and providence, scientific historiography assumes that the beginning of history is rooted in man’s social nature and in his coping with the life-conditions of his natural environment. From this follows the conclusion that if there is any regularity in the development of human civilization, and in the development of the spiritual culture that creates and activates it, then this development is natural and continuous. Moreover, it is possible to investigate it with the tools of humanistic and social sciences. Thus, a religious mode of thought is replaced with a secular mode of thought. But in this very event is embodied one of the most fruitful paradoxes that shaped the modern philosophy of history, which interprets historiography and draws its conclusions from it. Scien- tific historiography contradicted the claim of the authors of the Bible that their narrative depicts the personal, familial, tribal, and national events as they occurred in nature and in civilization. By comparing the realistic experience of the investigators with the experience envisioned from the testimony of the Bible, they determined that the religious narrative is unrealistic, and in this sense it is a fictitious story. At best case, the cre- ators of the historic myth availed themselves of events that had occurred and shaped them creatively in order to raise them to a plane that represents reality as they imagined God to have viewed it. This meant that in order to know the past within which the present came to be, and to derive the lessons it had to offer, one must remove the fictitious shell from the biblical narratives, together with the theological ideas it contained, in order to uncover the events as they occurred in natural and cultural reality, and the natural-cultural regularity that is their basis. For this purpose, the modern secular historian is in need of knowledge from additional sources: from ancient literature, from ancient archives, and the relics of ancient civilization covered in earth. Two modern sciences answered to this need: philology and archeology. But it is impossible to draw from secondary sources such as these a continuous historical narrative, comprehensive and meaningful. Therefore, with respect to the history of the Jewish people among the nation as and with respect to Christian Western culture, the testimony of the Bible remained the primary testimony, and alongside it the ancient literature that documented the cultural-historical memory of the great Mediterranean civilizations, especially Greece and Rome, from which Western culture derived the values of its technological civilization. the drama of secular history 165

Dependency on the Bible, the source in which was rooted the past memory of Western culture, brought modern secular historiography, too, to the conclusion that even if the historical myth does not depict the events as they occurred in natural and cultural reality, nevertheless this documented memory, which was imparted through the generations as an obligatory legacy, had a formative importance for the knowledge and understanding of Western civilization in its gestation, development, or decadence, up to the modern period. This meant that this memory, as given, was indeed the source and beginning, though in a different sense than the biblical narrative claims. It is an objective fact that the biblical myth shaped the image of Western culture as it exists in the present, more than the actual events themselves, which no one remembers as his cultural legacy, even if it were possible to find their attestation in the archives and excavations. The fact that prior generations thought that the myth that they imparted to their descendents was their history, indeed made it their history in the cultural sense. In this way, a historical paradox took shape: even though modern historiographical research contradicts the “historical claim” of the biblical myth, this myth continued to serve as the oldest cultural memory, the foundational memory, in which the beginning of Western culture is rooted. But we should pay attention to the precise meaning of this finding. The scientific historian knows that the historical myth of the Bible had been made the beginning of the history of Western culture by virtue of a decision that was instituted (around 100 CE) a long time after the Bible had been accepted and become the source of historical memory of Jew- ish culture (by its reception by Ezra in the period of the return from the Babylonian Exile around 450 BCE). Moreover, the historian knows quite a bit about the history that preceded the presentation of the Bible, and sees in it the beginning of the history of Israelite culture, which itself is presented as the beginning of the history of Western culture (according to the Christian Church Fathers). But that is the very point. The intentional institutional reinforcement of the Bible as the beginning of the history of Western culture was carried out by virtue of the alliance that was enacted between the Christian Church and the Roman Empire in the time of Constantine. This alliance was a historical event that was attested scientifically, and became the foundational finding of secular historiography. Here is the tangible evidence: the first year from which we begin the enumeration of time of Western culture, with general official consensus to this day, even after secularization, is the year of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, according to the calculation of Paul and the Church Fathers. 166 eliezer schweid

From here we come to our concern in the modern era. The secular era began as a “Renaissance” of moral values and social, political, and cultural-spiritual content found in the earlier sources: the Old Testament, the New Testament, the literatures of Greece and Rome, and the institutions of their civilization. It follows that even from the perspective of the secular age, the historical myth of the Bible embodied its beginning as a cultural memory. I am referring to the story of the beginning according to Genesis, the depiction of the image of the first man and the definition of his task in creation.1 According to the Hebrew source, which differs from the Chris- tian interpretation to which the Renaissance and Enlightenment returned, the fashioned body of the first human being was created from the dust of the earth, the same as the animals. Man was raised above them through the spirit of God that was breathed into his earthly body in order to bring him to life. This is the meaning of the human being’s creation “in the image of God” and “in the likeness of God.” By virtue of the spirit of God, the body of man stands erect, his face shines and is directed forward and upward, he speaks rather than roars, and he conceals his bestial parts with clothes that give a display of splendor and dignity. In this way he presents to the eyes of animals, who cannot see what can only be seen by the eye of the spirit, the spiritual reality of God in Heaven, that is, a tangible image of the supreme King, whose rule is visible to the angels and to mankind who believe in Him, but concealed from earthly creatures and from those of mankind who do not believe in Him. Of course, it is not for himself that man represents God, for he knows the God who dwells in heaven, whether when he looks up to the heavens that are lit up by the light of the sun during the day and by the stars at night, or from God’s word to him. The human represents God on earth only for the animals who are subject to his mastery. It is clear that this fact, which is the source of human pride, is also the source of his sin, inasmuch as he is an intelligent creature, conscious of

1 Translator’s note: The Hebrew adam (in the original biblical narrative, and in Sch- weid’s usage throughout much of this chapter) denotes the human race—comprising males and females—mythically represented by a single individual, Adam, who is conven- tionally depicted as male. The English “man” similarly comprises the entire human race, mythically portrayed as an individual, as in: “Man is an intermediate creature, in which animal nature and spiritual nature are commingled,” but unfortunately the primary male connotation of “man” cannot be dismissed from consciousness. In the long, complex symbolic narrative that ensues here, I have tried at intervals translating adam as “the human being” but lapse into “man” where conciseness is called for. The reader should bear in mind the gender-inclusive reference of these terms nevertheless. (LL) the drama of secular history 167 himself and choosing his goals. The human is liable to see himself not only as a dialogue partner with God but also as worthy of being a god in his own right, to rebel against Him, test Him, and take His place. All this points up the problematic nature of the existence of the human being in creation if we see nature in humanity. The human lives on the boundary of two worlds—the heavenly and the earthly. S/he straddles both life forms, the bodily and the spiritual. S/he is an intermediate type in which animal nature and spiritual nature are commingled. In bodily nature, the human is drawn toward bodily pleasures and is tempted to see his/her happiness in them. In spiritual nature, s/he is drawn toward spiritual, intellectual, emotional, imaginative, and rational life, and when s/he strives to persevere in them, s/he finds in them his or her true happiness. Similarly, the human being is caught between two desires. The one desire is to live at home in the world and to find one’s happiness in it by maximizing one’s sensual pleasures with the aid of one’s intelligence, imagination, and emotions, and by devoting oneself to feeling the power of one’s mastery (that one acquired with the help of one’s spiritual superiority) over all creatures subordinate to one, including one’s weaker human brethren. The human’s other desire is his yearning to live in the presence of his or her Creator Who breathed his spirit into him/her. This is a distracting and confusing conflict, which is liable to lead to exaltation when man allows his spirituality to gain ascendancy over his corporeality and subdue it; but it is also liable to lead to spiritual and moral degradation when man tries to turn his bodily pleasures from a means serving his bodily life for the sake of spiritual ends into an end in itself, thinking to find in it a substitute for the life of the spirit. This is an existential dilemma, on whose account man is tempted to do everything that his bodily urges draw him to do, and he is easily drawn to things that appear enjoyable and empowering. Only after he commits the deed and suffers the punishment it brings does he understand that he has mistaken his goal, and only then is he liable to internalize the lesson and to make an effort not to sin again. From the biblical story we learn that the circle of sin, punishment and repentance is a perpetual cyclical process in the lives of individuals, families, and nations. It persists as long as mankind lives on earth, and it shapes the cultural history of all the peoples that comprise humanity. The axis of human cultural history is the confrontation between those few who devote themselves to belief in the one God, that the Bible announces and propagates, and the many who betray it and turn to idols that promise them bodily happiness as a substitute for spiritual happiness. This is the parting of the ways between 168 eliezer schweid man’s aspiration to live in nature and his aspiration to cut himself off from nature in order to live a spiritual life outside it. We return to the story of creation. Man was appointed to rule over creation under heaven, bound by God’s laws. The earthly creatures do not see the spiritual god and do not fear Him, but they see man and learn to fear him. In this, the human represents the hidden God, Who commands him to rule over His creation for their benefit (including man’s benefit). In return, God ruled that the animals should assist the human being in fulfilling his task and should serve him in working his land. Just as the animals must serve him, so man must serve his God, to worship Him, to give Him the first fruits of his harvest, and in this way to achieve the perfection of creation and perfection of himself within it. The basis of the Bible’s outlook—on the reciprocal connection between God and man, and between the human being and the other earthly creatures—is that in order to arrive at perfection, all earthly creatures must contribute their part. They must raise themselves up with the ability latent in the soul-power that God implanted in them, so that they can maintain themselves independently. Here is the place to emphasize that this is the deeper meaning of the concept of creation in the Bible: God acts as an artisan. He thinks and produces His creatures through His thought, but the act of formation is the concretization of the children of His spirit outside His thought, through matter external to Him. Thus the Creator confers on His ideas an existence external to Him. But when we are speaking of the creations of God, who are living creatures, we are speaking of a separate, independent reality, from which it follows that they bear responsibility for their lives and their deeds before God. God gave them their existence for themselves. Therefore they are obligated to Him and to themselves, and they must exert themselves to be as He intended that they be, for their good, to make Him happy over His works. This is the meaning of the phrase, “God saw that it was good” in the creation narrative. God tests His creatures. Only when it becomes clear to Him that they maintain themselves as He expected them to, does He confer the blessing, which is the power and command to be fruitful and multiply of themselves, to beget in their image and likeness. This, then, is the basis of the assumption that cooperation of all earthly creatures, and in particular cooperation among mankind, is the condition for perfection of creation according to God’s will. Without the cooperation of His creatures, God cannot promise that the creation will be good as He desired. This answers the question that people of uncertain faith ask: Why did God not create a perfect creation, in which all creatures live forever the drama of secular history 169 in plenty and happiness? Why did He bring on them suffering, illness, blemishes, sins, and death? The answer of the biblical story is that the forces of chaos, darkness, evil, and disorder preceded creation. They are the infrastructure that enabled the Creator to actualize His thought and to give His creatures an existence separate from Him. It follows from this that the forces of chaos did not disappear with creation, which imposed its form on them, but the opposite: they entered into it, in such a way that the independence that the Creator-God implanted in them flows from the untapped energies stored in matter, whose body takes shape from them. In other words: The substance of the earthly creatures is expressed in the being and activity that does not follow from the form and from the laws that God impressed on them, but from the being and activity of the forces of chaos on which that form and those laws were impressed in order to impose on them obedience to rational pattern, to rise up from the evil in which they were immersed, to ascend to a better reality, unified and acting for a goal. This means that the forces of chaos are included in the essential structure of creation. They activate it and drive it from within. In order that it should maintain itself according to the law of God, the creatures are called on to willingly obey God’s commands and laws, that is to say, to prevail with the help of the spirit that God implanted in them over the disorderly selfish urge that propels their matter. Indeed, imagining God as an artisan combines these ideas with the image of a father begetting his progeny. The earth is the mother. She is pregnant and brings forth her children after the begetting father—God—fertilizes her with the seed of His thought that fashions forms and lays down laws. From this understanding of the biblical concept of creation follows the idea that God puts His creatures to the test after creating them. First and foremost of them is the human being, the pick of earthly creatures. If man passes the test, he will fulfill his destiny, realize his endowed essence, and it will be good with him. If he fails, he will seal his own doom before God, for the forces of chaos will overcome him. This will be his sin and his punishment. In order to rule over creation, human beings are thus commanded to rule over themselves and to fulfill their calling through God’s commandment—namely, to perfect the created world in a way that would be an imitation of God’s work. God creates the heaven and the earth and makes them His kingdom, whereas human beings form the civilization that shapes their natural environment, serving them and enabling them to maintain themselves and to rule over the creatures subordinate to them; thus it becomes their kingdom. 170 eliezer schweid

The test that man is commanded to pass in his kingdom is work. Accord- ing to the myth of the Garden of Eden—the protected enclave that God prepared for man for the sake of his human existence—man was created from the earth in order to work it and guard it, and this is his primary service (avodah)2 to God. God assigns man to his garden. It is up to him to prove that he is good, that in his created existence he is obedient to God’s will and carries out the special commandments that God laid on him as the governor of His creation. From this are derived the concepts of good and evil, sin and righteousness in biblical ethics. Good is when each creature orients himself by the law of creation that God implanted in him. Evil is trespassing on another’s existence, and absolute evil is destroying it: nullification and death. According to these definitions, doing the good is righteousness and refraining from doing good—or doing evil—is sin. Righteousness is the fulfillment of man’s calling in creation, whereas in doing evil man sins, and betrays his destiny. According to the Bible man learns from failing the first test how to differentiate between good and evil not only theoretically but in reality; he learns to beware of tempting appearances. Sins seem pleasant and tempting before man experiences them. Evil cunningly masquerades as good, just as good may seem bad on account of the labor that one must invest in it and the deprivation it requires. Only after bitter experience and defeat does man discover the responsibility latent in his ability to overcome the temptations of desire, the ravages of his hunger, and the difficulties and pains that he must undergo in order to attain the means necessary for his survival in nature. The profound difference between man and the other animals finds expression in the freedom of choice by which man is graced through his intelligence. The person who knows, evaluates, and weighs is able—and by that token, obligated—to choose between those actions following from the inclinations of his bodily nature or lusts and those actions following from obedience to those laws that God has laid down for the establishment and preservation of human society. Creating a civilization requires a society—a unified collective entity, not a mob of individuals fighting the war of survival with one another through giving in to the urges of their selfish lusts. When a person is tempted to act according to his or her

2 The word avodah has an elastic range of meanings, crucial for a proper understanding of biblical and Jewish thought. Among these: work, bondage, service, worship (both sacrificial and prayer). This leads to the fruitful notion that productive work in God’s world is the highest service and worship of God that a human being can render, and fulfillment of humanity’s proper role as “servants of God.” (LL) the drama of secular history 171 bestial urges, without critically examining oneself from the standpoint of one’s task in human society and civilization, that person sins. If so, it is clear that the sin flows from the person’s bodily nature, as with the animal, from the opposition that is liable to be manifested between weighing the rationally perceived (ethical) good against what only feels good. But man’s bodily urges were also implanted in him by his Creator, and they are necessary for him to be fruitful and to survive in nature. We should add that providing mankind’s needs is bound up with grinding labor, because the land does not provide them by itself. God prepared in the land all the resources needed for all His creatures, including mankind; but man is in need of improved conditions, and he must seek them, wrest them, and work them, in order that they may suffice and be fitting for him. This is the continual trial that is decreed upon man in exchange for the special status with which he is privileged. From this follow his struggles between his intellect, reflecting his Creator’s commandment, and his lustful urges. These perpetual struggles make sin a necessary ingredient of the whole length of man’s life-course, because for all his days he is fated to wrestle with the temptation to sin. It is possible to say even this: The fulfillment of his destiny in creation is effectively defined by this struggle. I shall formulate it as follows: According to the Bible man is able, and therefore commanded, to overcome every temptation of his lustful nature. In no situation, into which he is thrust in nature and society, is he forced to sin, even though when he does sin he tends to excuse it with the claim that he had no choice, that he was compelled, that his lustful urges, or overwhelming external powers, made him do it. It is true that it is not easy to overcome the temptations of his lust and the pressures of survival in nature and society. But if we examine each instance in its own right, we shall be persuaded that it was always possible to overcome, to suffer in the present and not sin, in order that it might be better in the future. The pit- fall lies in the perpetual daily trial, persisting hour after hour and minute after minute in one’s rapidly changing life circumstances. The decision for the right choice is not always simple or obvious. Man’s faculty of rational choice is not always alert, and his lusts cunningly present the good as evil and the evil as good. Therefore it is impossible that flesh and blood should never sin. Even a person who decided vehemently to abstain from sinning and to do only good, must stumble into error from time to time, through distraction or weakness of resolve. How much more is this the case with people who are engaged daily with coping with the burdens of rule and government (the rich), or who suffer the tribulations of poverty and acute 172 eliezer schweid deprivation (the poor). To this, one should add the psychological perspective. The sinning person savors the immediate pleasure that the sin will produce before one experiences its bitter consequence. If one’s sins pile up without repentance and correction, one’s sin becomes a habit and the habit becomes a compulsion. When this happens, one’s ethical judgment becomes falsified to the point that the person descends to the lowest level: one does evil for its own sake, as if happiness is to be found in it. The person is therefore in need of God’s help in order to withstand his trial, and the help is given to him in the form of instruction, laws, and commandments. By observing them, he serves God, repents for his sins, and corrects them to the best of his ability. In return, God grants him atonement, preserves the purity of the “image” in which he was created, and guards his dignity and freedom. But even God, who according to the biblical story was sorry He had created mankind, cannot prevent the sin and the corruption it engenders. In the fullness of time, every person sins and dies by his iniquity, and every civilization is fated to become corrupt and to be destroyed. The cycle of growth and decay in nature shows itself in history as well. Nations and the civilizations that they have built undergo the course of blossoming, development, maturity, decay, and destruction. In its childhood and youth, every human civilization achieves a certain moral and material perfection. But when it arrives at affluence and dominant power, and it turns its enjoyment of them into a goal that it pursues for its own sake, then the sin latent in them becomes manifest. The overripe civilization is corrupted through its sins, is punished, disin- tegrates, and is destroyed. The continuation will be a new life cycle of another nation. A young nation, eager for happiness, will appear at the gates of the perishing civilization, will conquer it, will inherit its cultural achievements, will establish on its ruins a civilization that is more efficient, and at the outset perhaps more righteous. One may see this as one step forward with respect to realizing God’s vision in creation. Period after period, step after step, until the days will be fulfilled when a civilization will be built that will obey the laws of the covenant that God enacted with all the children of Noah. The covenant will vanquish the forces of chaos and will turn them into forces of fructification. The early biblical prophets believed that the history of the nations in general, and the history of Israel in particular, attested to the gradual realization of this vision. The Israelite people were chosen to be a “special treasure” and a “kingdom of priests.” They were appointed to further the realization of God’s plan: to reveal the kingdom of God on earth, as it was manifest in heaven. The continuation of the the drama of secular history 173 creation narrative is the continuation of the story of mankind after they were expelled from the Garden of Eden on account of their sin, but more properly to fulfill their destiny: to fashion an expanding civilization out of the resources of the earth, that was cursed on their account, for the sake of providing their needs. We see manifested here a kind of dialectical contradiction, of great significance for modern humanism. From man’s perspective, the exodus from the Garden of Eden was an expulsion, that is to say a punishment (an experience that every child who enjoyed a happy childhood experiences with maturation), but from God’s perspective it was a positive mandate, sending man forth to fulfill his destiny on earth, to improve creation and to redeem it and himself from the forces of chaos that had not yet been brought under control. In other words: from God’s perspective, man’s exodus from the Garden of Eden was necessary, and as such was not a punishment but a mission, indeed a mission whose fulfillment was a severe trial replete with pains. It was God’s will that humanity should spread over the face of the whole world in order to turn it all into a paradisia- cal garden by working the land. God, desirous of the good, promises His help if humanity will devote themselves to His commandments; He gives them law and ordinance, and fertilizes the land with the rain of heaven and with the bounteous warmth of the sun. Indeed, only in the face of this assignment and promise does man’s true trial begin, the trial of Cain and Abel, and afterwards the trial of their descendants who fashioned the antediluvian civilization; their success was rewarded with abundant fertil- ity, but for the severity of their sins they were punished and wiped out by the waters of the Flood. The Flood narrative returns creation symbolically to the stage of chaos that preceded it. It concludes the composite mythological chapter, rooted in Chaldean and Canaanite idolatrous myths that preceded it. The story of Noah and his sons is an encounter between mythological memory, which alone can provide anchor for a clear image and conception of the beginning of history, and the realistic historical memory of the peoples of the Tigris and Euphrates. One can see in it a realistic image of the beginning of history, or an archetype by which the historical beginning of West- ern culture was depicted, with the establishment of Christianity and the Church that united the Greco-Roman civilization. But it is also the prelude that provides an archetype for the beginning of the modern secular period in Western culture. The key for understanding the biblical archetype is to be found in the Tower of Babel narrative, whose sequel narrates the unfolding of the 174 eliezer schweid national civilizations of the Mediterranean basin, the great civilizations of antiquity. The national civilizations that arose after the collapse of the Tower of Babel also contended with one another, until one of them vanquished all its competitors and then fell prey to corruption and destruction. The story then continues with that other civilization, the one that pledged itself in covenant to be faithful to the mission that God had laid on the descendants of Noah. This was the civilization of Israel. This nation was charged with the double task: to struggle against the earth’s curse and against the dominion of the idolatrous imperial powers. Is it any wonder that it stumbled again and again with its sins and was punished? But is it not a wonder that despite its rebellion and sin, it took its punishment not as vengeance but as an education, behind which could be glimpsed a supportive love, promising salvation that must surely come at the end of days? The Tower of Babel narrative begins with the obedience of the tribes of humanity to the will of God, so that they should spread out over the earth, so that every tribe should become a nation in the land that God gave them. Every nation should tend its garden, rest content with it, and live in peace with the other nations in its neighborhood. But when the wan- dering tribes found the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, in which there was a concentration of resources and favorable geographical and climatic conditions whose exploitation would enable man (or at least, so he deluded himself) to secure all his needs in abundance and to realize his lusts for despotic domination with ease, then a fateful transition took place. The descendants of Noah exploited their common strength; they united; they concentrated their creative efforts in a single kingdom. Instead of spreading out over the earth, as God desired, they decided to build a mighty civilization that would enable them to ascend to heaven, to expel God and to sit on His throne. The Tower of Babel story defines the meaning of idolatry and the difference between it and the belief in one God, not with respect to the number of gods, but with respect to their essence—a supra-mundane Creator God, versus independent forces of nature; a God Whose rule is for the sake of benefiting His creatures, versus gods who identify the purpose of their rule with their egotisms; a God who imposes a beneficial and fruitful order on the world and commands a moral order on human society, versus contending gods who strive to suppress each other, gods who rule by their selfish exploitation of all the resources of nature and of their creature-subjects. All the characteristics of idolatry came to expression in the civilization that sinned in its rebellion against God’s rule. The civilization served the the drama of secular history 175 egotism of the kings and princes who thought of themselves as gods and demigods. It was a house of slavery at whose head stood a despotic ruler who claimed divine authority (which he did not have in fact, for he was a man, not a god). The result was understandable. When the king, through his despotic acts, passes the bounds of tolerance of his servants, they rebel; they undermine his authority and abolish his laws. The state reverts to chaos; it breaks apart, and all its citizens return to their tribes and clans and scatter to the four winds. Each tribe and clan wanders and seeks a place to establish its own national state. But afterwards, each nation state tries to imitate proud Babel by imposing its rule on all its neighbors in order to unite humanity under it (globalization!). The story of the tower is a myth. But it is also a tangible historical memory, on which authors from the successor-nations that proceeded from the ruins of that united state were able to pin the memory of their national origins, thus assigning a tangible beginning-point to their historical memories. Thus, too, did the Israelite nation, which developed from the last of the clans to leave the Mesopotamian valley to search out a land in which they could multiply, take possession, and establish their own state. According to the Genesis narrative, the migration of Abram and Sarai to Canaan formed a part of the last wave of young, closely-related peoples of the progeny of Shem, who settled in the vicinity of Canaan. But it appears that this migration was exceptional in its motivation and its fate. The clan that was the last to arrive did not find the land vacant, and God promised them a land that was already the inheritance of the Canaanite peoples, who had corrupted their way and lost their right to it. This issue already emphasized the element of mission in this people’s fate. It was up to them to correct what another nation had spoiled by violating its Creator’s mission. This was a special privilege, but above all an awesome trial. The first attempt to deal with it did not succeed, necessitating a long road paved with failures. But even when they were punished, the people of Israel did not perish. The covenant enacted with the fathers obligated God to keep His promise. The land was laid waste and the people were exiled. They learned their lesson, and when they returned again to their land they believed that this time they would pass the test and prevail. . . . Did they prevail? The earlier prophets of Israel believed that their nation would prevail. The later prophets of Israel, after the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel and on the threshold of destruction of the King- dom of Judah (which already appeared imminent), stood on the threshold of despair. The sins of the idolatrous nations, among whom their nation lived, got progressively worse, and their nation, struggling for its 176 eliezer schweid independence against more powerful enemies, needed to imitate them in order to survive among them, and to sin like them. It thus became clear to the point of despair that if God Himself would not intervene in His earthly creation and change it from the ground up by a decisive conquest of the forces of chaos in the world, among human beings and their civilizations, there would be no progress toward realizing the vision of God in creation. There would be only further decline, resulting in a return to the chaos that preceded creation. There was no escaping the conclusion that God needed to impose on earth a perfect order such as prevailed in heaven and to rule directly over the earth, not through kingdoms of flesh-and-blood mortals. The later prophets of Israel believed that this would happen. After the Kingdom of Judah would be punished for her sins, God Himself would appear and would rule over the earth. The heavenly hierarchy of God’s angels would descend to earth, and those human beings who withstood the testing furnace of their trials and were justified would be joined to it. The sinful idolatrous powers would disappear, and the nation of Israel would be saved for eternity. The historical reality that became consolidated after the return to Zion, the building of the Second Temple and the renewal of the Israelite King- dom of priests of the Hasmonean dynasty, led to disappointment of this hope as well. The previous cycle—a modest advance, leading at its climax to further failure and deeper defeat—was repeated again. The second Israelite Commonwealth declined into sin and became Hellenized, and the wicked civilizations of Greece and Rome took the place of the ancient idolatrous civilizations. In the eyes of the Jewish sages, these newer civilizations were more sinful than all their predecessors. The nation of Israel (even that part that had returned to its land) was exiled into their midst or defeated militarily by them. If so, what was the logic of “divine Provi- dence” that tolerated this disintegration into the depths of demonic wickedness? When would an end be put to it? How? These questions were the motivations for the development of mystical apocalyptic movements in Judaism, as well as for the emergence of Chris- tianity from prophetic Judaism. Jesus of Nazareth founded Christianity by proclaiming that man would not be redeemed on earth by mortal governments, but only by God Himself, by raising up creation toward Himself. This was his way of making peace with the fact that redemption was not possible on earth, for earthly creation as it stood was not susceptible to reform. It was possible to redeem only the soul that God had breathed into man, which was pure from its original source. For this purpose, it the drama of secular history 177 was necessary to liberate it, through force of faith, from its servitude to the body, which would continue to sin and to suffer until its death. The Church that Jesus’ disciples established broke away from the Jewish people, for the latter remained loyal to the prior vision of the establishment of the kingdom of the House of David. Jesus’ gospel was therefore addressed to the gentiles. The turn to the gentiles was made possible, because the need for it had been awakened among them. Jesus’ gospel spoke to the heart of the masses of slaves of the many nations that were held in thrall by the Greco- Roman empire, which could not function without them. Under the cruel government that ruled them, the slaves could not hold their heads up, and they were in need of a redeeming consolation. They dreamed of getting out of the Roman house of servitude, just as the Israelites in their time had gone forth from Egypt. The Church held out for them the promise of redemption near at hand. It defined them as “Israel after the spirit.” If they would believe and practice charity among themselves, their soul would be exalted from its prison and would return to its homeland. But for this, they had to renounce earthly happiness and to lovingly suffer servitude of the body and its pains. This meant that the Exodus from Egypt—the Good News of the Chris- tian Church—was not conditional on rebellion against the sinful Caesars. The fate of the Jewish people in the Greco-Roman empire had demonstrated that such a rebellion had no chance; it would only bring about destruction and further deterioration. The Church called on them to renounce earthly happiness and to submit to the enslaving kingdom, for the sake of spiritual happiness in heaven. It thus laid the basis for the covenant that was enacted in the days of Constantine between the Church and the Greco-Roman Caesarate. At first the imperial power persecuted the Church, because of the fear that it would raise the slaves to revolt. But when it became clear that it was impossible to defeat the Church, because persecutions only strengthened its influence, whereas it was not calling for rebellion, a reversal took place to the benefit of both sides, and the alliance was made. Both sides had to pay a price, but it appeared from the outset to both that the gain was greater than the loss. The Christian Church attempted in its way to realize the vision of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, by shaping Western culture in its spirit. Indeed, on the basis of the covenant between it and the Greco-Roman empire, Western culture developed and became a mighty civilization of a new kind: a commingling of the idolatrous civilization and the culture of the monotheistic Church. One could say that in this way Christianity 178 eliezer schweid overcame Greco-Roman paganism by making it subordinate, but without taking it up by the roots. It acted similarly with regard to the nation of Israel and its Torah, from which it derived its own teaching. This meant that the Church arrived at a position of power, but it paid for this at the cost of realizing the vision that it had borrowed from the monotheistic faith and at the cost of developing the scientific and technological power that it had inherited from the Greco-Roman civilization. When this cost became clear to both sides, all understood that the loss was greater than the gain. The spread of this realization among the creative elites that became awakened, some in the courts of the kings and nobles and some in the bosom of the Church itself, led to the outbreak of the secular revolution in all its force. The wealthy and dominant Church fought for its positions, but it became clear that it was using up its forces in a hopeless war, whose very waging by force betrayed its goals, while its secular adversaries became empowered by waging this struggle, and gained in influence. For them, the result was clear from the outset. This is the prologue to the drama of secularism. The first act lasted from the alliance of the Church and the Empire through the Middle Ages. The second act lasted for the period of the revolt against this alliance by the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, through the Enlighten- ment. The third act lasted from the point that the modern movements arrived at the climax of their social and political achievement through the outbreak of the crisis of humanism, from the second half of the nineteenth century until the end of World War II.

Act One: The Exit from Nature

The movements of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment interpreted the covenant between the Christian Church and the pagan Empire and saw in it a decision to exit from nature. The Jewish maskilim (proponents of the Jewish Enlightenment) also argued that when their people went into exile under the Greco-Roman imperium and the Christian Church— partly by force, partly voluntarily—this was not only an exit from nature but also a decision to exit from history, in the secular sense. Are these two claims not strange from the standpoint of the secular historian? Is this not a derivative use of the language of myth? Is it possible for people to exit from nature and remain alive? Can a people exit from history and remain a people? It is clear from the outset that expressions such as these are philosophical-historical metaphors borrowed from the the drama of secular history 179 language of religious myth, while attempting to secularize them. But they describe in an appropriate experiential sense a real psychological-cultural process. The exit from nature and the exit from history express the experience of a revolutionary change in orientation, at once economic, social, political, and spiritual, of Western culture toward the end of the Hellenis- tic era, when it stood on the threshold of disintegration. If we examine the general development of Western culture from the perspective of the nations who see themselves as collective entities, in that era it appeared as engaged in a hopeless struggle to extricate itself from the coils of its civilization, which was sinking into the chaos of a cruel war for survival, the war of all against all, under an ineffectual imperial regime that was clinging to its position through the power of a large army, armed and trained, but occupied with preserving its rule and financing its expenses and services, while failing to provide protection to any but those whose services it needed. All suffered from the threat of utter chaos—not only the oppressed slaves, who could not organize to raise up a counterforce and transfer the government to their hands, but also the oppressors, who were dependent on their slaves no less than the slaves were dependent on them. Thus they held on to each other, like a pair of drowning men who try to rescue each other but end up drowning together. It was clear that in such a situation even the strong men in power could not come up with a more effective or just alternative. The only way out of the anarchy that threatened was a process that would fix in place the existing forms of administration, while neutralizing the feelings of rage, frustration, and despair of the masses of exploited slaves, through a religion that should hold out for them consolation and hope to merit happiness in a realm of existence that lay beyond civilization and earthly nature. What would they have to do in order to merit this happiness? They would not have to do anything. The merit of their faith, the merit of their suffering and righteousness, and the merit of God’s love and mercy would stand in stead for them, and while they still suffered in this world, their faith would exalt them and overshadow all the sufferings of their bodies. This understanding of the gesture of the exit from nature points to the source that was its counterpart: the pagan notions of the “world” and “man” of the Greco-Roman civilization. Christian theology imposed on these concepts the concept of “creation” and “man created in the image of God” from the Bible in its own version, which was adapted to the experience of nature and civilization of the pagan nations. One could say that from the perspective of these nations, whose idolatrous religions no longer 180 eliezer schweid answered to their hearts’ desire, the imposition of the biblical concept of creation already smacked of exiting from pagan nature, all the more so the imposition of the Christian version, which was like stamping an opposite on its opposite. This was the civilization that man created for himself by his own counsel according to his nature, with the evil and the sin against which the dominant Christian religion waged war through a sophisticated resort to evil. The less wicked of the sinners, who was in power and in charge of law and order, would fight against the more wicked, who violated all laws. In the mean time, the righteous could survive and through their faith safeguard their happiness in their own lives, and would merit something that was beyond the reality of nature as it stood, something that was not the present that changed and passed and melted and was gone, in contrast to the divine eternity from which all came, and to which all would return. I will recall the distinction that we proposed between pagan idolatry and monotheism from the ontological standpoint. Paganism is deification of the immanent forces of nature in its material substance, while monotheism stands for the existence of an absolute distance between the spiritual God and material creation. It follows from this that paganism does not see the gods as forces of nature, but nature itself is divine, in absolute opposition to the biblical outlook that sees nature as creation. Indeed, according to the pagan outlook there is no such thing as creation. There is also no such thing as a linear development that goes beyond the cyclical progression of birth, maturation, senescence, and death that repeats continually. The world—taking together all its components, including man—exists of itself and for itself. Its cause and purpose are identical with the power-dynamic that is itself the world, which by the same token dismantles it by a fixed cyclicality according to its own causal regularity. An additional substantive difference between biblical monotheism and paganism is expressed in the intrinsic difference between the notions “nature” and “creation.” Nature is deterministic, blind fate, or causal process. By contrast, creation is volitional. The Creator-God is good, therefore he chooses existence and prefers it to nonexistence. To the human being created in the divine image, God imparts the power of creativity that is rooted in will and choice. The moral consequence of this is that deterministic nature is beyond good and evil; it is what it is, as it is, and cannot be any different. So it is also from the perspective of the gods. The gods are forces of nature that man calls by personal names, describing relationships between them through personal stories. It is easy to translate them into conceptual language, and one then turns the stories the drama of secular history 181 into science and philosophy. Pagan man sees in the gods, which are forces of nature, means to his happiness. He uses them to his advantage as much as he is able. How? He makes use of the fact that the gods are dependent on his worship in order to force them to pay him more for the fruit of his labor. The opposition between the Bible’s concept of creation and the pagan concept of nature is, in this sense, absolute. But Greek philosophy created a common denominator that made possible the fruitful encounter between them. The philosophical hermeneutic process began with Philo of Alexandria. It is nevertheless possible to discern it already in the Wis- dom literature of the Hebrew Bible, in rabbinic midrashim. It became more definitely crystallized in medieval philosophy, and reached its full development and application in the general and Jewish Enlightenment movements. We recall that even according to the biblical account of creation, the primeval heavens and earth preceded their full-fledged embodiment, as well as the creation of the heavenly bodies and earthly creatures that issued forth from them, even though their origin is not spelled out and is beyond the scope of human knowledge. From this we may deduce that the heavens are unchanging and their bodies are perfect and eternal, whereas the earth was the chaos of dark forces, without form or law, but powerful and fertile. Through creation, God imposed form and implanted their laws, but the existence of creatures is separate from their Creator and their vitality proceeds from themselves in two ways that are liable to conflict with each other: the lustful urges that arise from the chaos that preceded creation and the laws that God implanted in these creatures. It thus follows that the Creator fashioned a nature that could be defined after the fact as the pagan philosophers defined their concept of a hierarchical-intellectual nature. But there is one important difference between them. If the Creator God wished to do so out of moral considerations, He could intervene in the laws of nature, which He Himself determined, to suspend them or change them. By the same token, He could endow man with the freedom to shape nature and to utilize its powers for his good and the good of all the creatures subordinate to him. According to the Bible, the discretion that was given to man over creation is not a departure from nature, but a potential for change and progress, that is latent partly in nature and partly in the divine will that rules it. But the Christian version is more extreme than this. It assumes that there is a contradiction between the Satanic forces of nature and the laws that God needs to impose on them continually, for they continue to rebel against Him. Thus a broad opening is created for the idea of redemption through an exit 182 eliezer schweid from nature. First, in mediation between God, Who is a dynamic spiritual substance, and the nature of the world. The mediation is achieved by means of intermediate beings (“angels,” “intelligences,” “the heavenly spheres”) between the spiritual God and the material world. Second, by assuming a two-directional movement of the spiritual soul, through the intermediate entities, from God into the material nature, in order to reform it as much as possible, and afterwards from nature back to God to achieve redemption in Him. The faith in immortality of the soul after the death of the body received cosmological support in the mystical doctrine of emanation. The possibility to climb up from nature and to ascend heavenward, on the mystical ontological ladder, became an experience to which the mystic testified from his personal experience, claiming that every person could enjoy it in his dreams. Indeed, even if the soul of the believer was imprisoned in his body, walking about on earth, he could feel the exaltation towards heaven when he directs his soul, through the windows of the senses, to nature outside him, and from the emotional involvement in the sensory experiences of its body into its inwardness. In that moment his bodily pain in this world will appear as if it does not touch his soul, which lives its independent life in the presence of God Who emanated it, and it becomes filled with the joy of His loving presence. The Christian Church institutes in its ritual the mystical psycho-ontological process of raising oneself above sin, above the body, above nature and the ascent to the exalted palaces in heaven, to the hosts of angels surrounding God, His Son, and His Holy Spirit, alongside all who proclaim His coming and the congrega- tion of saints who were slain and mortified themselves for the sanctification of His Name sitting before Him. In the institution of monasticism that it established, Christianity fashioned the exemplar of life in the earthly world through devotion to the spiritual world beyond it. Monasticism in its exemplary form is first of all physical withdrawal from civilization. The monk goes to the desert, lives in caves, eats and drinks whatever desolate nature offers him, and is content with it. He fasts frequently, abstains from sexual relations, and minimizes sensual enjoyment of every kind. On the other hand, he focuses on the spiritual life that surrounds the worship of God: prayers, psalms and hymns, study and reflection on theological and metaphysical topics, performing good works while completely forgoing his selfish desires. He is ready and even yearns for death, and for great afflictions, in order to sanctify God’s name and the name of his Son the Savior in public. In this way he imitates the Son of God who came down from heaven to earth to die on the cross in order to the drama of secular history 183 redeem mankind, atoning for their sins through His death, by ascending to heaven. In this way the monk became a saint, separated from sinful natural corporeality, and ascending to live with the Son of God and the hosts of God’s angels in heaven. The monks’ withdrawal from civilization and going out into the wilder- ness could appear to secular man as a Romantic return from civilization to nature in order to live in brotherly love with all God’s creatures. But the monk goes out to a wasteland, not to a land flowing with water and vegetation. He wants to break his natural lusts, and he chooses to draw them to the desolate expanses of land, exposed to heaven and emphasizing the opposition between heaven and earth, or to the high mountains whose summits express the earth’s yearning for the heavens that encompass them, symbolizing the desire to live in heaven and not on earth. This is indeed a kind of romanticism, but not in the sense of earthly love, but in the sense of spiritual love, cleaving to the Holy Spirit. In a very tangible way, the monk’s retreat from civilization symbolizes an exiting from nature to return to his Father in Heaven. In this way, the Church offered an exemplary model. Christian society in its entirety is called to imitate this model without leaving physical civilization behind, through a symbolic abstinence expressed in all walks of life, as for most of humanity this is the only way to survive. The imitation of the monk’s example without retreating from civilization is expressed first of all in submissiveness. The believer accepts his social status and the conditions of his life and sees in them a fate commanded to him by God. Even when injustice is done to him, he will not rebel against the powers-that-be, because rebellion against the authority is a rebellion against God’s will. If indeed injustice is committed against him, he is reliant and confident that the perpetrators will not go scot-free before God, and that he will receive his reward when he goes to heaven. The imitation of the monastic example was expressed in obedience to the priests of the Church, in accepting its creed without questioning and in receiving its sacraments in purity. It was expressed in ethics, for even if it did not demand mortification, it mandated frugality, modesty, and abstinence, being content with the bare necessities and bewaring that one not turn sensory enjoyment into the goal of life. The believers, who were regular citizens in their worldly polity, did indeed live in civilization, but with a tendency to withdraw from it, each according to his ability and according to his degree of faith and charity. The exit from nature, and the complete fulfillment of everything that follows from the holy principles of the faith, is expressed in the severe 184 eliezer schweid morality of abstinence, by confining sexual life within marriage with one wife, a lifelong commitment that could not be abrogated; by maintaining sexual relations only for the purpose of procreating children and educating them in sanctity; by limiting the satisfactions of eating and drinking to just what was necessary (gluttony was forbidden); by devoting oneself to hard labor, each man in his occupation conceived as his calling on earth; by focusing the spiritual life on faith, prayer, and theological studies that strengthen one’s faith, at the same time limiting thinking on matters pertaining to this world within the confines of Church doctrine. The ascent to heaven was expressed by regular churchgoing, especially on Sundays (the Christian Sabbath) and all Church Holy Days. The Church attached great significance to the theoretical and ritual dimensions of spirituality. This was expressed in the Church’s dogmatic fixation on controlling the souls of its believers (in parallel with the earthly kingdom’s control over their bodies). For this purpose it needed to erect a preventive barrier against heretical thoughts and doubt. It needed to censor all publications and to supervise religious studies in all educational institutions at all levels. It also spared no effort, in the universities that the Church established and financed, to insure that the program of learning be correct. Instruction and study of natural sciences were not there to serve the development of worldly civilization, but to support the outlook of the Church concerning the status of nature in relation to the Creator God. Preference was given to theology and metaphysics, and physics was studied for the sake of metaphysics, that is to say, in order to provide empirical verification to the a priori assumptions of doctrinal metaphysics, which was rooted in prophetic revelation. Indeed, this was an exit from nature, from scientific study of nature as-it-was, in order to use it for human advantage. In point of fact, research was halted almost completely, and its place was taken by metaphysical hair-splitting on questions pertaining to the spiritual purpose for which God created His world with its whole host of creatures. Finally, one should pay attention to the enormous investment that they invested in building their churches, in their architecture and the rich plastic and musical arts that served them, and that was subordinated almost exclusively to their purpose. The church is outstanding for its height, ascending heavenward. Its faith attests to the story of salvation of the Son of God and the stories of the saints who bask in the divine presence in heaven. The Church symbolizes the destination of its believers. It radiates light and consolation to the darkness of their lives, and when they come to it to pray and to receive holy sacraments, they experience its height the drama of secular history 185 and breadth, along with the artwork that tells the story of faith and salvation, the exalted and uplifting music that fills the space and commingles in it the souls of the attentive worshippers, the Kingdom of Heaven, to which they aspire to go, there to be saved eternally. In all these respects, the believers find themselves in the struggle to cut themselves off from nature, and the effort to rise up from it to the sublime spiritual sphere, which despite its remoteness is experienced as real and near.

The Torah of Israel never intended to bring man and the people of Israel out of nature, and certainly not to bring them out of civilization, but the opposite. It intended to reform civilization, to prevent sinful idolatry and to bring creation closer to the perfection that God intended for it. Even when the spiritual leadership of the Jewish people trembled in despair that human beings by themselves cannot save themselves from the sins that brought down their idolatrous civilizations, and even when they awaited divine intervention to change the rules of nature and crush the forces of chaos that suffused them, everything depended on the merit of the Jews who kept the commandments, which dealt not only with belief, ritual, and deeds of charity and kindness, but with reforming the world in its economic, social, communal, and political parameters. From a halakhic standpoint, “the settlement of the world” (civilization) continued to be not only an undeniable necessity, as it was in the eyes of the Christian Church, but a providential commandment that applied throughout the whole period of exile until modern times. The philosophical-intellectual outlook of the great shapers of halakha in the Middle Ages, such as Saadia Gaon and Maimonides, is clear testimony to this. However, by virtue of this established halakhic conception there developed in the Exile a paradoxical situation, one that was especially prominent in those countries where Christianity was prevalent. There was a double confrontational tension, firstly between the minority religion and the ruling religion, which maintained that the latter was rooted in the former and was its correct version, and secondly the tension between the Christian Church and the secular monarchy concerning the status and function of the Jews in their communities and civilization, from which they jointly benefited and for which they were jointly responsible. The Christian Church did not regard Judaism as an idolatrous religion whose existence was forbidden, and recognized that it could not force the Jews to convert to Christianity; still, they assumed that sooner or later the Jews would come to Christianity of their own accord. On the other hand, the Church and the secular authorities were at odds on the question of 186 eliezer schweid the status that one should grant Jews within Christian civilization. The Church held that one should degrade them by isolating them in ghettos and requiring a demeaning dress code, to forbid them from own- ing land, to limit their economic occupations, and especially keep them out of government jobs; whereas the secular powers preferred, for several reasons, to avail themselves of the services of Jews who excelled in their economic contributions and in the scientific professions (medicine, astronomy, philosophy, politics). Therefore the governments would grant special privileges to those communities that served them, enabling Jews an independent communal existence in the legal, socioeconomic, and, to some extent, political aspects. In other words, the Church rejected the Jews from the civilization, especially from their connection with nature, forcing them to be more separate from nature than the Christian believers. But the secular powers were interested in having the Jews give expression to the positive relation of halakha to civilization and to the worldly kingdom, and become integrated with it. This paradox had another side. The successful integration of the Jew- ish community, and of the enlightened elites that led it, in the activities of civilization of the nations in whose midst they dwelt, while struggling against the Church that kept trying to hold them down, led necessarily to the cultural absorption of influences that stemmed from the Chris- tian worldview, from its theology and dogmatics, from the way that they distinguished between the “Kingdom of Heaven” and the kingdom of this world, from seeing earthly life as a transition from the antecham- ber (this world) to the banquet hall (the World to Come), which was the ethos of the Christian martyrology, an ethic of abstemiousness tending toward asceticism. It was a spiritual orientation that held up theology and metaphysics as the highest areas of knowledge, in which human perfection was achieved, and through which was paved the mystical path that connected heaven and earth, by which the soul of man, emanated from on high, would be purified from its sins, sanctified, turning its back to the corporeal life of this world, leaving nature behind and uniting with God, even while it remained imprisoned in its earthly body. In exile, under the dominion of Christianity, an opposition developed between the positive, intellectual relation of halakha to civilization (and the positive calling of the human being who creates civilization) and the negative attitude of Christianity, which was absorbed in Jewish theology in the Diaspora, particularly in its kabbalistic strata. If so, we should not be surprised that when the Church succeeded in its efforts to isolate the Jews, to contain them in ghettos, to cut them off from natural sources of the drama of secular history 187 existence, to persecute them, to drive them out from one land to another and to leave them only the slim hope to achieve salvation in the World to Come and in the Days of the Messiah, then its spiritual influence increased as well. This could be seen in the estimation of the idolatrous, sinful nature at the foundation of the worldly civilization; the realization that it was not possible to reform it or be redeemed from it by independent human powers; the reinforcement of the ethic of abstemiousness to the point of asceticism; and devotion to the service of God through fulfillment of the ritual commandments and study of Torah for its own sake. All this was by way of distancing oneself from the worldly wisdom that developed among the nations dwelling on their lands, their secular science, their religious and secular faith, and their philosophy. There was also a reinforcement of the mystical path to redemption of the soul from the bonds of the natural body, sometimes to the point of neglecting the halakhic obligation of every Jew to take care for his sustenance and the sustenance of his household. In this connection we should recall that negation of the secular civilization of the Jews was not a means for the Church to strengthen its worldly power and material possessions for its own benefit, but complete renunciation of the pleasures of this world for the sake of the spiritual reward of the world to come. The tendency toward ghettoization (domestic, economic, social, and spiritual-religious) grew more severe in the great centers of the Jewish people, which arose in Western countries in the period in which the secular revolutionary movements of the Renaissance and Enlightenment began. This revolution indeed created the background for the struggle over emancipation, in the sense of integrating equality of rights and obligations in the secular state and its civilization. But before the Jews considered requesting emancipation, which followed necessarily from the political principles of secularization and modernization, the socioeconomic, political, cultural, and religious siege on the Jewish people intensified, not only from the Church, which was struggling for it its own position, but also from the secular government, which had undergone a constitutional crisis that reshaped its national identity. From these internal and external processes, the sense of exile intensified, and deepened the feeling that exile was not only the loss of a homeland and independent polity, but an exit from civilization and expulsion from the nature in which it had been rooted. At a time that every people was rooted in its land and saw in it a foundation for its national power, the uprooting of the Jewish people from its land and polity was highlighted, for it had left its own land and polity, but it had not entered truly 188 eliezer schweid into the lands and polities of the nations to which it had gone. At a time that every nation sought to establish its nation-state on its land to insure itself the power of rule as a separate, unique collective entity, the communities of Jewry were without defense against the national governments of peoples who saw the Jews as foreigners who cunningly infiltrated them in order to take over power. At a time that all the nations centralized in order to be a majority in their lands of settlement, the Jews remained a small, scattered people who were a politically powerless minority in all the countries where they lived. At a time that every people dwelling on its land based its settlement on it and derived its sustenance by working the land and refining its resources through industry, the Jewish people were completely cut off from these sources of subsistence; thus they were cut off from nature in the most tangible physical sense. They could see it, but they did not live in it, and they were not attuned to the life that flowed through it. From what did they support themselves? From the professions of middlemen between the workers of the land and their exploiters; from small crafts that were marginalized by the industrial revolution; from shopkeeping; from small and large commerce; from banking and investments, which indeed make some Jewish families exceptionally rich, but precisely because of this, the gentiles saw the entire Jewish people as a parasite people, sucking the blood of peasants and factory workers. In all these respects, the Jewish advocates of enlightenment saw their people as they appeared in the eyes of the surrounding nations, as a parasite people, cut off from nature and living on the artificial infrastructure of worldly civilization. How could the Jewish people hold its own in its disembodied existence, deracinated and cut off? It was forced into its ghetto isolation because of the hatred encompassing it on every side, anchored to heaven by the strength of its Torah, its faith, and the fulfillment of the ritual commandments that identified it. The secular revolt of the Jewish Enlighteners thus took place in tandem with the secular revolt of the Enlighteners of Western nations and tried to restore the Jewish people and its culture to a renewed secular civilization and to the nature in which it was rooted.

Act Two: The Return to Nature and to Natural Man

The negative aspect of the secular revolt is well remembered today. Involvement of church religion in the governance of earthly civilization was rejected, along with its educational dominance in the areas of the drama of secular history 189 spiritual creativity. But the positive aspect, which was primary, has been forgotten. The moral relation to the source of civilization underwent reversal, as well as the attitude toward nature and toward man yearning for independence, for freedom, and natural happiness, both bodily and spiritual. In the Renaissance they understood the concepts of “nature” and “natural man” in the same way as they were understood in the religious philosophy of the Middle Ages, which was a tension-laden compromise between the Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy and the biblical teaching of creation. What, then, was the significance of the reversal of the attitude toward them, from a scientific-philosophical perspective? First of all, it was a perspectival reversal of the way of seeing man in the world, and his status in it, in which was embodied the secular worldview that is called “humanism,” which is to say, man’s seeing himself as at the center of a unified, harmonious hierarchical world surrounding him. The medieval philosophy of religion looked at nature, and at man standing at its center, from the exclusive viewpoint of God ruling over the world. Man was required to obey God’s commandments and to apply them in his thought, his emotions, his deeds, and his way of life. All were required for one goal, which was the service of God in doing His will that was made known to man through direct prophetic revelation through the Church. Humanism rebelled against one-sided authoritarianism in the name of the independence of man and his freedom, in the name of his aspiration, as a natural creature, to find his happiness in benign satisfaction of his material and spiritual needs and in expressing his self through his creativity. This was the meaning of reversing the perspective of observation from a perspective attributed to God, Who had revealed Himself to man in an authoritative doctrine that was obligatory inasmuch as its instruction came from God, to the perspective of man himself, looking at nature from within nature, and at God Who revealed Himself to him from within nature, that is to say, by means of the wisdom, the beauty, and the good that are expressed in creation. This reversal of the perspective from God’s viewpoint to a human viewpoint is what defines secular humanism in its relation to religion. It sets man in the center of the world first of all from his own viewpoint, that is to say, from his knowledge of himself, that he is the most distinguished and exalted of all the creatures of nature in his environment, and similarly with his conscious aspiration to happiness, expressed in the striving for perfection of being and experiencing, knowing and creating. From this, man knows that God brought the world into existence, and he, man, exists in it. For things exist for those who know 190 eliezer schweid them, and nature in its unity exists. It is known to its Creator on the one hand, and to man who exists for himself on the other hand. We should be precise. Humanism did not bring about man’s self- deification, as in pagan idolatry that Christianity had vanquished, but it returned to the Bible, and it interpreted the idea of “creation of man in God’s image” in an idealistic and optimistic way. There was no revolt against God or attempt to inherit His throne and bring it down to earth, but rather a setting up of man as dialogue partner with God, as a creature who reflected or imitated Him and responded to Him from within creation, but not as a slave, rather as a free person acting according to God’s will on his own behalf and on behalf of the nature that he represents. This is the deeper meaning of the revolt against the Church, which had ruled in the name of God over man and over the civilization that he created in order to subjugate them. It was not a revolt against God, but against this dissembling idolatrous institution. But it is clear that the reversal of perspective resorting to a scientific philosophic theory required a reversal in epistemology. Epistemology is the account that a philosopher must give of the nature of knowledge and its evaluation inasmuch as it is an intellectual activity, its acquisition and verification. Medieval philosophy of religion was rooted in prophetic revelation, and its epistemology was based on it. For this purpose it borrowed from ancient Greek philosophy the theory of emanation of an intellectual effluence, flowing from the divine intelligence, by way of several intermediate “intelligences” (angels). The effluence arrived at the Active Intellect, which was the intelligence of the terrestrial world embodied in matter, and from it to man’s intellect. From the outset man’s intellect was in a state of potentiality, emerging through the material senses and imagination. It gradually became actualized and took on substance as a separate spiritual entity through the intellectual emanation flowing to it from God through the Active Intellect. One should note that in this emanational epistemology one finds the dichotomous religious distinction between the heavenly world and the material world. The heavenly world is ethereal, pure, and eternal; it is the world of the heavenly spheres, in which the stars are ensconced, and of the “Separate Intelligences” (angels). Opposite stands the material world, replete with “privations” that give rise to impurity and evil. Humanism is rooted in what man can know about himself, about nature and about God with the spiritual faculties that God has implanted in him, by which process they became his own faculties—natural faculties that he controls. In this way, the assumption of the centrality of man in creation the drama of secular history 191 received the meaning of knowledge, thought, and autonomous evaluation. The criterion by which the human mind distinguishes between truth and falsehood, and between good and evil, is innate, that is to say, it is based on the observation of every rational being’s intellect of himself in order to examine his relation to all objects external to him and to know them from his perspective. Does this self-observation generate a contradiction between what God knows in His world and what man knows in his world? Certainly not, for God implanted in man his intellect and the power of creativity latent in him. To be sure, the opposite perspective presents, for God and man, different facets of the same truth as glimpsed from opposite sides: that of the Creator and that of the creature. It follows that just as man cannot see everything that God sees in the external world without prophetic revelation, so God cannot see what man sees, least of all what he creates by himself, except through the person who thinks and expresses his thought in his speech and in his creative activity. In this way, man becomes the center of creation from both perspectives: with respect to the mission that God laid on him and with respect to himself, inasmuch as he is a creature who shapes his personality and the civilization that is intended to serve the goal of his happiness, which is also the goal of God in creating a world external to Himself. This is the full significance, that man sees himself independent in his relation to God, to nature, and to the goal for which he was created. The assumption that there must be complementarity and compatibility between man’s seeing himself in nature and God’s seeing him as creature, averted an immediate change in the picture of the world in Renaissance humanism. This was still a Platonic-Aristotelian world model: a hierarchi- cally emanated world, proceeding from a hidden divine source, arriving gradually at the multiplicity and materiality of the terrestrial world, as it was depicted in medieval religious philosophy. Originally humanism remained faithful to this picture. The difference between the religious and secular outlooks was limited to the assumption of unitary, harmonious continuity between the heavenly and earthly realms; their evaluation of the wisdom, beauty, and good to be found in the world; and the rationalistic understanding of evil, which was a privation bound up with the deficiencies of matter, not an active negative entity striving to wreak havoc. But the process of internalizing the significance of this reversal, while aspiring to realize the ideal of earthly happiness by perfecting and elevating material civilization, quickly came to completing the revolution in scientific and philosophical epistemology, and thus in changing 192 eliezer schweid the criterion by which one examined the differences between subjective and objective observation, between true and false, and between good and evil, from the perspective of the autonomous person. From these quickly proceeded a general revolution in the picture of the world, in conceiving the essence of man as a part of it, and in understanding his calling and the essence of happiness, to the point that one started to ask whether there is a God, whether one can prove God’s existence, and if indeed nature was created by a power external to it. The reversal of perspective that provided the ground for humanism took place in the consciousness of the intellectual elites that led West- ern culture during the Renaissance. The turning point in the methods of scientific research started to become visible in the activities of individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo Galilei, but fleshing it out was the task assumed by the movement of the Enlightenment, starting from the second half of the seventeenth century. It is what brought about the revolutionary change in the picture of the world and the definition of “nature.” From the perspective of man—who knows only what his eyes see, his heart feels, his mind conceives, and his understanding interprets and evaluates—the ancient cosmology was now discredited, whether with respect to the knowledge of objects observed from earth or the dichotomous distinction between heaven and earth (that is to say, defining the place of the earth in the space of the universe and the place of man and his natural environment) or the connection between the divine intellect, via the hierarchy of intermediate intelligences, and man, or between God and the material world. In all these respects, the new intellectuals came to the conclusion that the entire universe—the earth and all the heavenly bodies—is one, one in its material nature extended in space and time, and one with respect to the connection between the intellect and its objects, for there is no intellect without objects and there are no objects without an intellect. This decisively refuted the religious distinction between the Kingdom of Heaven and the earthly kingdom, and between God’s knowledge of the universe that He caused and man’s knowledge of the objects in the scope of his experience. Nevertheless, the universe (nature) reveals itself to the scientist as heterogeneous, many-faceted, filled with oppositions, conflicts, and contradictions. Man, creator of civilization, must cope with this multiplicity and these contradictions in order to orient himself in space and time, with the aspiration to survive, that is to say, to find in nature satisfaction of his needs, and to defend himself against competitors and exploiters. the drama of secular history 193

The doctrines dictated by the Church authorities may have been in line with the interests and evaluations of the Church hierarchy and the secular rulers, but they no longer seemed relevant to the people and its members who stood up for their independence and their own interests. In order to care for the happiness of the society and all its members, one needed to forge an experimental method of research. The research started to become more specific with respect to identifying its subjects and the causal connections between them, and more general with respect to describing the map by which one could define ends and chart path- ways. It quickly became clear that the program of detailed experimental research was endless. One could advance in it but never complete it. The causal connections that could be formulated as natural laws formed an endless, heterogeneous totality of finite entities extended in space and time, multiplying and uniting through these mediums, relating to each other and influencing each other, but not necessarily forming a teleological, harmonious hierarchy. At least at first sight, there did not seem to be any correlation between the concepts of true and false, which were objective, and those of good and evil, which were rooted in the purposive subjectivity of people seeking their happiness in the world. In other words: The nature of the world, insofar as one could define it through laws, was determined after the fact by forces conflicting with each other, not in advance by a designing intelligence. The nature of the world is causal-deterministic, not teleological. In this respect, the opposition between heaven and earth, which according to the ancient religious worldview was at the same time ontological, teleological, and ethical, has turned into the opposition between man’s ethical-teleological subjectivity, in his relation to himself and existence, and the causal-deterministic objectivity of his knowledge of the relation of the world (as a totality of heterogeneous objects) to itself and to him. The result is thus that nature and civilization, to which Western culture was returning, were no longer the same as when it had left them. The same is the case with respect to the sources of culture from which the Renaissance had sought to renew the culture in its spiritual dimensions. As to man’s quest to know God, there was a change in the understanding of the basis, essence, and interpretation of these sources that claimed to have been given to man through divine revelation. They now appeared as creations in which wise people had expressed their knowledge and thinking on the way that God related to His creation, to the extent that it is within human ability to understand this. They were thus transformed from scriptures in which one had to believe, whether one 194 eliezer schweid understood them and agreed with them or not, into a legacy that one should study critically, with a view to accepting what was convincing while correcting and amending what was less convincing, or what did not fit one’s experience because of changing circumstances and the deeper and broader outlooks that were formed with the development of the culture. It followed that values, guidelines, and applications changed in accord with the results of advancing research and philosophy based on it. On the basis of the humanistic revolution, one should examine the application of the return to nature in the various creative domains of European culture, as well as the centers of the Jewish people who either integrated or remained separate in their identity. We shall start with anthropology—the study of man, his role in nature, the essence of his perfection and happiness. On the basis of the trends of our age, moving quickly toward individualism and globalization, one should recall two complementary aspects of humanistic anthropology, that were later muted and then ignored: the natural aspect and the political aspect. From the rational aspect, humanism sees man as a creature who was born like all other animals, but diverged from them in his development after birth. All animals grow in size and become qualitatively stronger after they are born, then become fertile and reproduce at maturity. This can be said of man too, but in a substantively different way. When man is born he is a powerless creature, dependent on his parents for every aspect of satisfaction of his needs, protection, and caring. More important, the intellectual and creative faculties unique to him exist from birth only potentially. The connection between this fact and the previous is clear: these are the special abilities by virtue of which he becomes independent and in his maturity surpasses the other animals of his class with respect to survival, dominance, and productivity, not with respect to biological progeny but creating civilization. These advantages distinguish him substantively from other animals of his class, but they develop and become manifest only after birth. In order to develop them, man must resort to those same unique methods of rearing that in his infancy make him so dependent on his parents and community. How do these abilities become manifest? Through education, which is a socializing process, which is part and parcel of the transmission and internalization of a cultural tradition. The political conception sees man as a political creature by nature, that is to say, a creature who can develop only in a “society” in its special human sense, which differs qualitatively from the “societies” of other animals. A human family comprises not only a male and female who mate the drama of secular history 195 and procreate, but rather parents who raise their children together and for this purpose form a unit that has an obligating framework of rules operating through ethical and social bonds. The same applies to the community and the people, which differ from herds and packs of animals through their normative-political structure. These two characteristics are interconnected. Aristotle defined man as political by nature, even though unlike certain animals (such as ants and bees) he manifests a tendency to selfish individualism, an instinctive com- petitiveness that is an obstacle to the political unity and stability of his society. This fact indeed dictates for man the necessity to establish his society in a judicial and administrative framework that includes the authority and means to enforce laws. This is to be sure an artificial framework, not natural and spontaneous, but this follows from man’s special nature, for two reasons. First, solitary man cannot find in nature the improved material conditions necessary for his survival. Second, only through being educated in a society can he develop his human genetic potential to become “man” in the natural sense unique to him. His personality, unlike his selfish and instinctual nature, is the product of internalizing a cultural legacy that is accumulated and transmitted by the family, community, nation, and state, uniting all the circles of natural belonging on a legal-administrative basis and turning them into an organic collective entity that is able to maintain itself in nature as an independent society. There follows from this a conclusion of great importance for understanding the comparison between a religious-monotheistic worldview and a secular-humanistic one. Man sets himself in his central place in nature and for this purpose employs the intellectual faculties unique to him. He is not born on account of being the purpose of nature, but when he realizes and unites his superior traits in a social framework he imposes himself on nature and becomes its ruler, so that he becomes the purpose of nature after the fact. But this is not possible without realizing and developing his faculties to a higher extent than he is able to attain by birth. In other words: At the center of nature stands not the human creature as he burst forth from it, but rather the human being as he can be and ought to be with the help of the development and activation of his talents and abilities, that is to say, with his cultural personality that he develops by means of the content that he imbibes from the legacy of his family, his community, and his people. The humanistic definition that determines that man is “the measure of all things” applies thus to the enlightened man, who knows himself and his environment, the cultured, developed man of polish and delicacy 196 eliezer schweid in his feelings and his esthetic taste, the intellectual man who operates according to morality and law, not according to the unconsidered urge of his instincts. It is the man who by his education has attained the resource- fulness of action and power of creativity that is executed by criteria of the spiritual qualities of truth, justice, and beauty. This emphasis differenti- ates the human society that establishes civilization and is maintained by it from the herd behavior of animals, and even from the colonies of bees and ants, who appear to human observers as so well-organized. The social behavior of insect colonies is dictated by instincts that are programmed from birth, whereas human sociality is engineered through rational thought and communication based on verbal and symbolic language that only the human being, uniquely of all natural creatures, possesses. As compared with the religious worldview, humanistic anthropology is rooted in affirming the movement toward intellectual-spiritual accom- plishment and positing it as man’s special destiny, both as an embodied creature of nature and as the progenitor of material civilization, which he creates by working and improving the natural resources of his environment. Note that the secular humanistic worldview makes no separation between body and soul, just as it makes no separation between the technological functions of civilization and its cultural-spiritual functions, for the two develop together and are interdependent. In other words: According to natural anthropology, the distinction between body and soul is a distinction in theory but not in substance. There is no body without soul, and there is no soul without body. It follows that the two function together and strive together for perfection and happiness in earthly life. But like the religious worldview, the humanism of the Renaissance and Enlightenment is idealistic and spiritual, not utilitarian and materialistic. In the active reciprocity between body and soul, humanistic man saw in bodily life a means to the spiritual life of his intellectual-rational soul, and in technological civilization he saw a means to creation of spiritual culture, not the reverse. How, then, did the natural secular-humanistic worldview differ from its religious predecessor, in its conception of human perfection and happiness? First of all, the new outlook assumed that man’s spiritual life is natural, not a departure from nature. This means that the body lives the life of the spirit just as the spirit lives the life of the body, for spirituality exists only through employment of the senses, emotions, and thought, which are all functions of the bodily organs: eyes, ears, neural system, and brain. the drama of secular history 197

Second, it assumed that man’s spiritual life is not able, nor is it intended, to bring him out of nature into some spiritual sphere outside it. There is no independent spiritual existence. All existence is material, physical-spiritual. Third, it offered a new definition of the realm of knowledge necessary for man in knowing himself, in knowing his natural environment, and in knowing God with respect to wisdom, truth, justice, and beauty, as they are manifested in nature. Finally, it offered a new test of the deed that accomplishes, improves, and advances the attainment of natural happiness, which is physical- spiritual. It is clear that according to the humanistic conception, metaphysical or theological considerations are not to the point, nor are the “commandments between man and God”—religious ceremonies or rituals. These are only symbolic means of education for the purpose of higher humanistic ideals. The main point is productivity, action. And with respect to productivity and action, the important considerations are to be learned from natural science and social science, ethics, law and jurisprudence, political theory, and practical philosophy that guides creation of civilization by planning it, activating it, and determining its way of life. Given the turn from metaphysics to immanence in nature, it was necessary to redefine the nature of perfection and physical-spiritual happiness. The religious transcendental worldview saw man’s perfection and happiness in obedience to the authority of God’s commandment and devotion to serving Him through His commands in all areas. Therefore all man’s needs were important, but only as instruments for devotion to God’s service. From this followed abstemiousness, which reduced bodily pleasure to the minimum necessary measure.3 By contrast, the humanistic conception of happiness was secular in the sense that it attributed teleological value (the value of something worthy of being done for its own sake) to the perfection of all functions and faculties that together comprise man’s life-existence. Knowledge of truth about the world, about man and about God glimpsed in nature is a supreme goal, but also aesthetic enjoyment from eating and drinking is a legitimate end, though not as exalted. The intellectual love of God is a supreme goal, but the love

3 The medieval view characterized here as backdrop for the modern is that of Maimo- nides, in the “Eight Chapters.” See Eliezer Schweid, The Classic Jewish Philosophers (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), 202–4. 198 eliezer schweid between man and wife and between friend and friend ranks high, whether love in the aethical sense (compassion and mercy) or in the erotic sense (desire). Attachment to God is a goal, but attachment to other people through family, community, and nation has an independent teleological value and even precedes the love of God, for the love of God is realized through these other loves. Just as knowledge of God has teleological value, so there is teleological value to knowledge of the world and technological and artistic creativity based on it. We thus have a hierarchy of ends, not a hierarchy of means subservient to a single end, and the principle that unites them is an aspiration to harmony uniting the plurality of all the components into a comprehensive organic entity without abolishing the multiplicity with respect to the identity of the components, but precisely through preserving each separate constituent to the proper extent, in a manner that together all these constituents should compensate for each other’s deficiencies. The application of the ideal of the cultured man in humanism begins with education, and indeed in the humanistic conception of education we see revealed in full consistency how the religious perspective is opposite to the humanistic perspective. Against the compulsory authoritarianism of the Church—which seeks to shape people’s personalities, their beliefs and views, their outlook, their habits, their vocations, and their lifestyles according to preconceived norms determined by the claim of divine revelation through the Church (or the rabbinic establishment)— is presented the approach that claims that a person develops from his own self, in accord with his independent native inclinations, gifts, talents, and abilities, by his efforts to arrive at a modicum of perfection that will gain him control, orientation, ability to satisfy his needs and aspirations. The individual self harbors the ability to bear responsibility for its actions. The self, arriving at independence, is the realization of human freedom. It expresses itself through the will and ability to bear responsibility for one’s life in the face of nature and society that condition one’s survival and development, wherefore one is obligated, for one’s good and for the sake of one’s perfection, to contribute to the good and perfection of all natural creatures in one’s environment and to human society. Man is political by nature, and therefore he is obligated, for his own good, to restrain his bestial selfish lusts, so that he can provide for the satisfaction of his own needs that he desires in an enlightened, beneficial and not harmful way. Humanistic education does not rely only on the person’s motivation to learn and on his native talents. A society is required to develop the native talents of its youths through instruction; the drama of secular history 199 it must guide them and provide assistance. Just as it secures provision for their bodily sustenance, so it must provide them with a legacy, which is like spiritual sustenance through which their powers of creativity are developed through exercising them. It is clear that the responsibility of the society to its members obligates them toward it and its legacy. They should pay back to the society by their creativity and by their transmitting to their descendants the legacy with which they were so richly endowed. There follows from this the need and the obligation to teach, which is the need to exercise authority. But therein lies the deep difference between compulsory church education and liberal humanistic education, which empowers a person to express herself. The difference is expressed in their definition of the authority of education and instruction and in the way it is exercised. First, the source of the authority is the society in its full extent, through its institutions. And it is not compulsory, for every educated individual is a part of the society and belongs to it, of his free will and to his benefit. In this way he becomes a partner in its decisions. Second, with respect to the source of its validity, the authority of instruction is identical with the knowledge that is imparted in order to satisfy the private need of the learner, not the selfish need of the teacher. The authority of the teacher is conferred by the society, which imposes his task on him on the basis of the learning he has mastered and the professional skills that he has acquired, and on the basis of the learner himself who wishes to learn in order to mature, to develop his personality, and to function well in his society, for his benefit and theirs. All this gives meaning to the concept of the autonomy of the personality being educated. In the process of education the student internalizes, with his understanding, the authority rooted in it to act in accordance with responsibility to himself and to the society, according to the ethical principles that he has internalized (his conscience). However, from the change of perspective of how authority is defined, follows also a revised definition of the methods of instruction and the course of studies adapted to the psychological nature of the person and his cultural personality. The meaning of this assertion is that one needs to shape education as a continuation of the natural process of the person’s physical-spiritual development in nature and society. As to its method, there springs to mind the rebellion of humanistic education against the methods of punishment administered by traditional religious education (whether church or rabbinic). According to the humanistic outlook, these are not methods of education but of animal training, 200 eliezer schweid and they insult the dignity and autonomy of the person to which one is entitled even as a child. The alternative is voluntary absorption, which is achieved by strengthening the individual’s motivation to learn and by the students’ realizing that when they learn they build themselves, and when they do not learn they harm themselves. As to the program of studies, it is shaped and balanced between what the society thinks its youths ought to learn because of its topical interest, and the learning ability of the youths, who develop gradually and ascend from the primary and simple to the sophisticated and complex, and from the easy to the difficult. From the viewpoint of humanistic education, this is a process of accre- tion. Each stage in it is a condition for reaching the stage after it. This is thus a continuation, on the social-cultural plane, of the human individual’s growing from his mother’s womb and from his genetic inheritance, which reflects the process of life’s development unfolding in nature from unicellular to higher forms. So, too, the individual progresses from infancy and childhood through youth and maturity. But in the social-cultural plane, cultural legacy takes the place of genetic inheritance, fulfilling in its way— adapted to its task—the same functions of nourishment, enrichment, fer- tilization, and development, expressed in the creativity that builds the civilization and culture of a collective entity, whose members are its limbs, tissues, and cells. But again, development outside the womb is conscious, guided by intellect, and directed by will, not by genetic instincts. For fleshing out this concept of education, with respect to the application of the program of studies and methods of instruction that bring about internalization of the learned contents, one should emphasize the following two assumptions of humanistic education, which sees itself as natural education. The program must be cyclical and progressive. The concept of development in nature is implemented through a cyclical regularity (at each stage the learner reviews the complete scope of the domains of knowledge, evaluation, thought, and creativity, which comprise the totality of the transmitted culture), with the addition of greater depth and breadth, until the learning potential of the student is exercised to the fullest extent. Thus the education progresses from grade to grade and from level to level, until the stage where the mature student is able to become integrated in the processes of creativity of his culture in the domain in which he is most qualified, to become himself a teacher and educator—of himself (by fulfilling his social tasks) and of his offspring. We must emphasize again the formative role of natural regularity. According to the humanistic conception, development is a gradual accre- tion of concepts that follow one from the other. This means that every the drama of secular history 201 stage in innovation is the actualization and renewal of the constitutive flow of the totality, not only with respect of the scope and variety of topics, but also with respect to the layers that are continuous with respect to their relevance to each other. Just as the body preserves its entire genetic memory, so the culture, absorbed through the process of education, preserves its historical-traditional memory, for the highest level of education will not be tangible and understood without the entire process that brought it to that stage. If so, just as in his mother’s womb the fetus recapitulates the entire process of evolution of the human species, from the unicellular sperm and egg through all the intermediate stages until it arrives at the human stage, and just as the body when it is born “remembers” or embodies all stages of the process, so the cultured person, through the cyclical course of studies, undergoes all the stages of development of his culture up to the level where he is at the present time. He continues to remember his development and to see in it an organic totality, by whose means he understands and by which he creates. The humanistic educator is thus required to remember that in creative processes of cultural absorption there are no omissions and no shortcuts, because every attempt to omit and shorten the way will fail, will pervert and spoil the achievement for which one is striving. It follows that in the modern era, in the higher stages of humanistic education (high school and university), it was necessary to give emphasis to two central disciplines, which comprise a comprehensive summary of the cultural memory of Western culture and the thought that interprets it and gives it application: the history and philosophy of Western culture and of one’s own people. In the study of these two complementary disciplines, the students find themselves within the present totality of their culture, and shape a worldview by means of which they can outline their own path. This basic conception of humanistic education, which is a process of returning to nature, will help us to describe application of the humanistic worldview, the return to nature in the different creative areas of modern civilization. We are speaking of four revolutions: the scientific- technological, the socio-economic, the national-political, and the artistic- experiential. It is obvious that all these revolutions took place each within a different discipline but still side by side, for one cannot say which preceded the other in time. But they enabled, reflected, and complemented each other. With respect to science and technology, the return to nature was expressed in superseding the form of scientific and technological thought that had taken shape based on the religious philosophy of the Middle 202 eliezer schweid

Ages. Both the philosophy, which implemented the rationalistic thought- method in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, and the Aristotelian natural sciences, that were based on experience, dealt mainly with questions of teleological causality, based on processes of existence, logic, and rational ethics implicit in this teleology and the meaning of life in the world, and inquired little about the processes of efficient4 causality manifested in the processes of nature. By contrast, the new sciences focused on efficient causality and on the question how one can harness them to supply people’s needs by working on natural resources. Until the coming of humanism, the success of the Church in dominating material civilization was quite impressive. Mathematics, physics, biology, botany, the theory of composition of matter, and astronomy were studied in the Middle Ages as handed down from the books of the ancients, as a closed and finished book of science passed down from generation to generation with hardly any criticism or addition. Application to development of technology and medicine was scant and unsystematic. The scientific revolution followed from a change in perspective from believing in authoritative divine revelation, which determined the purpose of creation as it saw fit (namely, for the service of God) to a perspective that valued man’s worldly interests. Humanism rediscovered that the senses and intellect were given to man from God, or from nature, so that he could survive, to satisfy his needs with the necessary quantity and on an appropriate level, and to control his environment. Man’s superiority over other animals with respect to surviving in nature was expressed in two complementary abilities—the ability to learn objective knowledge, based on experience, and to fashion tools that should enhance his physical abilities and overcome his limitations. This discovery wrought a transformation. The question of man’s purpose in nature was indeed an honorable question that philosophy had to answer, for the purpose was an expression of man’s subjective will, based on his knowledge and evaluation of himself. But the purpose also had to be based on objective science, and science, as such, did not deal with questions of purpose, of “why” and “wherefore,” but rather with questions of “how” and “by what means,” whose answers would be given unequivocally. One answer alone could be correct, and all would agree on it on the basis of objective experience. This answer

4 “Efficient” not in the modern industrial sense of economy-of-effort, but in the philosophical (Aristotelian) sense of acting to bring about a specific effect, usually in a lawful regular manner in accord with the specific nature of the cause(s)—as opposed to “teleological” (where the purpose or end-goal is conceived as “causing” the effect). the drama of secular history 203 would enable man to fashion tools that would ease his labor and increase the scope and level of his productivity and its adaptation to the needs of his happiness. Indeed, one could say that the reversal of the questions that science had to answer in its research based on experiment was what had brought about the transition that changed the entire picture of nature from its philosophical-theological form and opened the unprecedented horizon of technological progress in industry, work, transportation, and later in communications and all the rest of the processes of production: in work, in the service industries, in marketing, in investment, and development. We should emphasize that the great hope that the Enlightenment movement brought to the cultured Western nations rested first and foremost on the proven achievements of science and technology. The Enlighten- ment started to improve the standard of living immediately, and whoever acquired knowledge saw the proof immediately in the improvement of his situation. It thus awakened realistic hopes that it would take giant steps forward in the future. Happiness on earth, of which the Church had despaired from the outset, and therefore educated people to make their peace with its impossibility and with evaluating the desire for it as a sin, became a close-at-hand tangible possibility through modern science and technology. The cursedness of the earth on man’s account was gone. Whoever would acquire scientific education and technology would be healthy, wealthy, and wise. From this followed also the faith in man. Man was fundamentally good, and his goodness followed from his aspiration to life and happiness. The evil in him was a product of his distress, his poverty, his sickness, of his fear of illness, maiming, and death that lay in wait for him. Thus, the more that he could overcome them, through prosperity, the easing of labor, medicine, learning, and enlightenment, the more would his natural goodness become manifest. Scientific and technological progress was thus the great promise. Eas- ing the labor that was bound up with bringing forth the needs of human sustenance from the earth and turning it to a fulfilling creative activity; easing industrial labor, which produced all the accessories of civilization; raising the general standard of living; improving medicine, transportation, and communication; raising the level of education and especially instruction in reading and writing to all, in order to give everyone the enlightenment that would elevate their orientation, the level of their lives, their dignity and freedom. The victory of the Enlightenment movement in its struggle against the domination of the Christian Church and the secular 204 eliezer schweid rulers who were still allied with it, was rapid and decisive, in good measure by virtue of these hopes. It was possible to see with one’s eyes that thanks to the movement of scientific and technological progress, West- ern civilization would soon become a paradise on earth. By returning to nature, the natural potential of human talents could develop the natural potential of those treasures of the world that were stored up for him. The general result that was generated by applying the new capabilities was a revolutionary change in the structure of European society, in all the networks of relations among individuals; among social strata; among families, communities, and nations. These had far-reaching implications for its intellectual-spiritual culture. The Renaissance thinkers and Enlighten- ment philosophers foresaw that there would be social change and desired it. It was their hope that the change would be positive and would increase the productivity of nature without destroying it. Nature in its entirety would advance and would be happier on account of its development and reworking. But in this matter, it became clear within a few generations that alongside the impressive achievements, serious problems were manifested. Just as the increase in control over nature enabled man to benefit himself and his environment, so it increased his capacity to damage and destroy himself and his environment. It gradually became clear that the destruction could outweigh the benefit. . . . In the wake of this sobering realization, a deeper consideration of the various aspects of this social transformation, called the “industrial revolution” by historians, was called for. In the guise of processes that seemed natural enough at the beginning, two aspects that followed necessarily from the developmental logic of this civilization—rooted in nature and exploiting its laws—stood out. At the start they complemented each other, but as time went on they separated out and started to conflict with each other: the social aspect (with respect to class structure) and the political aspect. Let us first examine the class structure. The industrial revolution brought about the following structural and progressive transformations:

1. it turned the economic market from preference for the agricultural sector to preference for the heavy industrial sector. It thus favored those jobs that served industry, and a centralized population on the basis of mass production, at the expense of jobs serving local population on the basis of production for specialized tastes and needs. It quickly became clear that increased digging for mining operations, disposal of industrial waste, and the burning of motor fuel, not only produced and the drama of secular history 205

improved products, but also destroyed landscapes and polluted the air and water. 2. most of the population were forced to leave the villages in the bosom of nature and their property holdings or residence rights on the land. They immigrated to the great cities, in which industry, commerce, and service industries were concentrated. They were uprooted from the bosom of nature and left propertyless. The immediate result was that most of the farmers and craftsmen became urban factory workers bereft of all, especially without means of production, for the machines and factories did not belong to them. Their only resource was therefore their labor power, which they were forced to sell at the price that their employers would pay, in order to produce for the sake of profit, not necessarily for the satisfaction of all human beings to labor and support themselves. 3. The landowning nobility also declined from their previous status. In their place rose the wealthy merchants who were able to invest in industry and commerce. Money turned from a means of exchange to a power that through the accrual of profit moved the wheels of industry, transportation, and commerce. 4. a revolutionary change took place in the form of division and organization of labor, along the lines of productive functionality, on account of the machine and the market. This had an immediate effect on the structure of urban society. Unlike village society, which supported itself from independent farm-households and division of labor within them, the urban family was reduced to the smallest unit (parents and children), becoming a social cell in which were carried out only the functions of consumption and child-rearing, but not production or marketing. The same influence was felt also on the character of the communal organization, built originally on a natural organic family basis. This organization became enfeebled and fragmented, and its place was taken by mass society organized on the basis of economic- professional class or political interests. 5. These transformations necessarily had implications for the pattern of relationships between men and women, among family relatives, between self-employed and salaried workers, and between civilians and government institutions. These relations took on a more commercial and exploitative character. They exacerbated feelings of isolation and alienation.

Were all these changes to be considered progress and improvement with respect to the happiness of the majority of people? Should one regard all 206 eliezer schweid of these as return to nature in any sense? I will show later that the debate that broke out around these questions, and the social and international struggles that followed from them, were a central factor in the crisis that started to occur in the Western countries. At first it caused a movement of return back to nature, to the village, to the forest and to the primal life-culture of man in nature, in the form of Romanticism. Afterwards it gave birth to the crisis of humanism, which was expressed in violent social revolutions, in nationalist wars, and totalitarian regimes. Understanding this development requires that we pay attention to the political aspect of the consequence of the return to nature in the Renais- sance and the Enlightenment, to wit, the appearance of the nation-state, the democratic form of government, and development of the national culture. The modern secular nationalism of Western culture was a natural consequence of the rebellion against the Church and against the imperial monarchy that received its legitimacy from the Church. We should emphasize here the connection between modern nationalism and the secular democratic form of government. In this respect, the return to nature was expressed in anchoring the legitimacy of the government in the community of the citizenry, rather than in God. In other words, the people were sovereign. The government was supposed to represent the people, to enable them to manifest their will and to care for their welfare and happiness. This is the common root of nationalism and democracy. Nationalism is the manifestation of the people, which is the source of legitimacy of the state, inasmuch as it is the subject and object of the state which needs to serve it. Democracy is the form of government, applying this outlook, as defined by the leaders of the French Revolution: rule of the people, by the people, for the sake of the people. We should say from the outset that several forms of application of this basic definition of democracy as a form of government are possible, and they are basically different forms of expressing the collective will of the citizens. But there is no doubt that all of these forms were national in the sense that they all assume the idea that the community of citizens interested and able to establish and conduct for themselves a state representing them are not an accidental combination of masses of individuals, but constitute a people, that is to say, a collective entity that developed to be such out of man’s political nature. The assumption was that the natural collective entity is rooted in family, tribe, community, and nation on the basis of generations of connections and the transmission of a legacy with a common language, dwelling together on a common land. This entity precedes the political establishment of the state. The nation is therefore the drama of secular history 207 the people, the subject, and object of organized self-government serving it in its land. It is the product of social nature that was established by means of its intrinsic inner law, the same as the family and community. Several generations later, during the crisis of humanism, Karl Marx and his disciples raised the claim that modern nationalism invented the theory of its natural origin as a political tactic. In their view it was the product of the economic and political interests of the capitalistic class in its efforts to capture power from the Church and the monarchy and to rule the people in order to exploit them in its factories. Nationalism is not natural but arbitrary and artificial, like the Church and the imperial rule, even though it has a source in nature and was adapted to a certain stage in the development of civilization. A similar claim is raised today by the proponents of postmodern globalization. But the history of cultures came first, which gave birth to Western culture, and the history of Western culture itself proves the opposite. The division of humanity into peoples, which developed from tribes and clans, is universal, and so one should see it as following from human nature. Basing governments on peoples, which raised them to the rank of nations, united on the basis of language, territory, and culture, is universal and in this sense natural. The history of modern Western nationalism supports the same conclusion. The Roman Empire ruled over the nations of Europe through the Greco-Roman civilization, which subsumed under its rule the original cultures of the peoples of Europe. To the Empire was added the Church, which became a dominant power aspiring to rule the world. The Church also forced itself on the peoples of Europe and stamped out their natural pagan religions. This was thus a dominating culture whose bearers were the ruling elites, not the people. These elites distinguished themselves from the people in their cultural language that they adopted from the foreign conqueror—the Latin language. The people did not understand the culture that was imposed on them, and they could not participate in it. They became a passive object, not the bearers of their culture. But the native popular cultures did not disappear. They had only been suppressed. The peoples, who continued to dwell on their land, concentrated in their ancestral homelands, continued to speak their original languages, to live according to the patterns and lifestyles of their heritages, and observed the pagan traditions under the veil of Christianity. Indeed, the Church was forced to compromise and to absorb these heritages, which comprised a special national-popular repository for each community and each church. Otherwise it would not have been possible to impose Christianity on so many different peoples. 208 eliezer schweid

Against the historical background of Western culture, the notion of “renaissance” took on not only the sense of return to the sources of Chris- tian culture (the Old and New Testaments), and not only the sense of return to the sources of Greco-Roman civilization, and not only the sense of return to the earthly culture that served as the basis of material civilization, but also the sense of return to the national cultures of the Euro- pean peoples themselves. To be sure, not the sources of organized religion with its rituals, but the heritage of linguistic, literary, and artistic culture that was natural to these peoples and flowed from their landscapes. The return to sources came to expression in the establishment of national democratic regimes, and in the revival of their popular cultures as secular national cultures. Each people returned to its sources on the basis of its connection to its land, its special national language, its state, its literature, its lifestyle, and its art. All this applies to the Jewish people as well. The movements of the Renaissance and Enlightenment of the European peoples, inasmuch as they were a return to nature, were all national. In this dimension of the development of national cultures—from the land-based, linguistic, organic- cultural sources (the family and community on the basis of generational connections) and the heritage sources (the cultural-historical memory)— the significance of the return to nature in its most pronounced and correct sense came to fruition. The Jewish people too—scattered among the peoples—was awakened to return to the natural infrastructure which had been the basis of its economic, social, political, and cultural flowering. All this was summarized in the nationalization of the collective identity of the people. It is against this background that we should understand the idea of secular-political emancipation, which was a process of integration of the Jews in the processes of social stratification, division of social labor, and the national-political organization of the peoples of Europe. Against this background, the processes of social stratification took place also within Jewish society, to the point that it succeeded in preserving the separate economic and communal frameworks, as well as the cultural processes. The Jewish Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement, which focused on education and transmitting the Jewish heritage, was from the outset a national movement, like the general Enlightenment movement. Like the general movement, it strove for linguistic revival (first in Hebrew, later in Yiddish), for literary revival (the creation of a modern Hebrew literature, parallel in its topics and its genres to other national literatures), and for revival of the popular culture of the Jewish people (song, dance, stories, the drama of secular history 209 and national ethos), and at the same time it strove to renew the Jewish religion in the spirit of modern humanistic culture. Initially, the Jewish modernizers enjoyed partial success and seemed to be overcoming the opposition of the non-Jewish nationalist parties. But they soon split apart between those that favored assimilation in the national cultures of the peoples of Europe and others who favored an independent national political revival, by establishing national-Jewish “autonomy” in Diaspora, or by returning to the Land of Israel in order to establish there a modern Jewish national state. In hindsight, we may emphasize that even the assimilating movements in the Jewish people were nationalistic, even zealously so, but they identified with the nationalism of the peoples among whom the Jews lived, and sought to preserve their identity only on the modern-religious plane. Frontal conflict then developed between the assimilating movements and the national-Zionist movements. To summarize, among the Jewish people, too, secularism was applied to a lifestyle of return to nature in the form of movements, parties, and ideologies, whether social (capitalistic and socialistic) or national (Diaspora or Zionist). The Renaissance return to nature was expressed in the revival of native languages, native literatures, and native art of the people’s cultures, because one instinctively saw them as flowing from the surrounding nature, streaming to the windows of the soul (the senses and emotions), enabling it to express itself creatively. They were connected physically and psychologically to the landscapes surrounding the person, and they reflected the landscapes of nature and its presence from the personal perspective of every individual. The creations of language, literature, and art were nourished from different experiences in nature but the central experience was a total experience that grasped the panoramas of nature as the face of the “Thou” relating to the human beings relating to it. The scientific rationalist would argue that this was anthropomorphism, in other words, a subjective illusion. Nature itself is only an object, and it has no personal relation to the creatures contemplating it. However, the philosophical rationalist will respond that the illusion stems from the personal nature of the person, who was born from the nature that surrounds him. He relates to it, and so he must feel that the nature from which he was born relates to him, and that which one must feel is true, objective, and not only subjective. Man conducts a dialogue between himself and all the creatures of nature that he encounters, and through them between man and the totality of nature. Alongside the objective, physical, and biological contact with nature, through which the 210 eliezer schweid person can use nature for his needs, is born a person’s spiritual connection to nature, who reveals herself to him as a volitional, intentional, self, a personal subjective presence with which a person lives, in the way that he lives with his human environment, conducting with it a dialogue that is not only exploitatively taking for his needs, but also relating to it and to its needs in a way that obligates him emotionally and ethically. We should take note that if through exploitatively taking from nature man forms his material civilization, then out of the soulful dialogue that he conducts with nature he creates his spiritual culture: his language, literature, thought, and art, as well as his science, which he acquires for its own sake out of the desire to know for the sake of knowing itself, in order to satisfy his natural curiosity. All these dimensions of spiritual culture, as a totality, according to this secular outlook are the religion that strives to combine the functions of utility that flow from nature to the function of reciprocal soulful relation between them. This, then, is the depth of the experiential-religious connection between religion and nation. Every nation is united in connection to God, who represents from its aspect the nature of its homeland. We note that the God of Israel, who is the God of the world and of all humanity, relates to the people of Israel through His special connection to its land, the land in which God chose to dwell. Indeed, even if there occurs a reversal of perspective of observation, placing man at the center, there remains the religious connection to nature, and it translates into a secular national feeling: the love of a people for its homeland, embodying within it the love of all human beings as individuals for their people, as a collective entity based on language, literature, and art, which are imitations of nature. The primary function of art is the return to nature. This involves more than the ideational connection—whether philosophical or ideological— of every people to its land, inasmuch as nature is the common possession from which man is sustained and on the basis of which he settles and defends himself. Here stands out the creative quality of linguistic, literary, and artistic expression, inasmuch as it is a reality that in its living reality reflects both the nature that gave it its material and the human spirit that shaped it in its spirit and brought it to life as its expression. The functions of expression and internalization are embodied in words, in poetic creations, in music, in dance—they are functions of creative-formative imitation, they imitate nature, and in this way they present it as an object for subjective relation, reflecting the relation of nature as subject to the artist who imitates it. the drama of secular history 211

The return to human nature, after his thought isolated him and created a distance between him and his objects, is concretized in the experience of identification with nature only in art. Therein lies its centrality in secular experience, as in religious experience. By imitating the objects and panoramas of nature, in a way that expresses the totality of one’s sensa- tions and emotions, a person represents nature to himself and internalizes it. Thus he lives nature and sees himself as a part of it, in the sense that nature relates to him just as he relates to nature. This is the psychological meaning embodied in the art of man’s longing for nature. His yearning to cling to it, as he clings to his mother, to suck from her breasts, basking in her warmth and her love. The psychological- anthropomorphic connection to nature is found in all the creations of the national culture that established the secular European cultures (the classical Greco-Roman culture, which modern secularism treats as its Holy Scriptures). But more than any other culture creation, the national feeling comes to expression that parallels religious emotion in poetry (verbal imitation), in music (imitation in sound), and in the painting and sculpture (plastic imitation) of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. These arts were shaped as “mirrors of nature,” and of man within nature, in a way that he experiences a reflective experience and identifies himself as a part of nature. It is as if the artist is nature, representing itself to itself and experiencing itself by being conscious of itself. These are both individual and national experiences, for every individual experiences them because he is a personality possessed of a reflective “I,” relating to nature in whose midst he lives, not only as his field of activity, but also as one who belongs to a particular family, community, and people, and because he is connected to nature as a child of his people, which is also a natural formation. Only thus can a person identify his land and see in it a homeland, in the sense that this is not only the land in which he was born but also the land from which he was born. When he calls it “Mother,” this is no mere metaphor, for he experiences in his connection with the land the same feeling that he experiences in his connection with his mother. Understanding the national feeling as a feeling of national belonging to a people and a homeland, and understanding art as a creative embodiment of this feeling, explains the birth of national Romanticism in West- ern culture as a movement of returning back to nature, a movement that influenced politics through art and through artists. As we said, it became clear that technological civilization cuts man off from nature and destroys his natural environment. This was the reason for repenting the betrayal of 212 eliezer schweid nature, for the sake of the civilization that was becoming cut off from it. This is also the source for nostalgic longings to return to it. But as it was a movement of modern, enlightened people, the yearning was not only to live in the natural landscape that preceded leaving the village, abandoning it to the destruction that the heavy industry caused by the roads that it paved, by the houses that it built (that do not fit the landscape but tear it apart and also dispossess its habitants in its path), by the natural vegetation that it obliterated in order to grow in its place cultural growths, by the emissions of smoke and other pollutants. Rather, the intention was to return and live the life of nature itself, in the artistic-religious sense that was experienced (as one surmises) by the original pagan god-worshippers. This can be done only through language, poetry, music, plastic arts, dance, theater, drawing, and sculpture. We note the dialectic of the return to nature when we see in it a romantic experience. It was impossible to return and live in the bosom of nature as did the animals or primitive human beings. Modern man is very much the product of civilization, and he remains such even when he becomes a Romantic. To be sure, he can go for a hike, to live for several days in the bosom of nature and enjoy it, but even when he is on a hike, he experiences nature not as someone who lives in it, but as someone who is impressed by it. This is an aesthetic experience to which man gives poetic, musical, and choreographic expression. Indeed, the essence of the return to nature was through the artistic experiences that were experienced with the most perfect enjoyment, the theater that provided splendid nature scenery, in the concert hall that promises splendid acoustics, and especially in the opera hall that provides all these dimensions of a synthetic natural experience. In other words: Modern art is intended in effect to provide the secular substitute for the experiences of sacred rituals that were experienced in the Church. The classical and romantic secularists leave behind the exalted ecclesiastical structure that raises man up into a high space of supra-terrestrial myster- ies. They sing, plan, dance, and act in the bosom of nature, or in structures that represent in an artistic way, earthly spaces in which there is an artistic representation of nature, and there they experience the divine in nature and in themselves. Romanticism succeeded better than classicism in this, and this was its major contribution to the process of secularization of Western culture. It is possible to say that secularism was incar- nated and became a holistic experience in the art of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. the drama of secular history 213

If classic national humanism strove to return to the sources of Christi- anity and to the sources of Greco-Roman civilization (also in the realm of art), Romanticism rebelled against the Hebrew Bible and against the New Testament, and strove to return to the sources of pagan nature religions of the peoples of Europe that Christianity had suppressed. These were sources whose mystery was the psychological mystery attributed to nature itself, full of gods. Romanticism interpreted secularization as intensifying the rebellion against Christianity, against Greco-Roman civilization and also against their natural sources, in the name of the national nature-religions of the peoples of Europe. From them Romantic nationalism drew the power of its inspiration. This applies also to modern Jewish nationalism. Romanticism penetrated it and celebrated its victory in the domain of art. It sought to return to a place behind the sources of the rabbinic- Diaspora Oral Torah, to the idolatrous Canaanite and Hebrew strata of the Bible and to the connection latent in the strata of expression to the nature of the Land of Israel. Secular Zionism indeed identified with the deep longing of an exiled people to return and live the life of nature in general, and of the nature of the Land of Israel in particular. The artistic product is marvelous. The better part of the achievements of modern secular culture are the products of Romanticism in poetry and other artistic genres. But its political products were calamitous. As Romanticism belonged to advanced secular civilization, and did not retreat from it but strove to rule it in order to realize its ideals, its results were expressed already in the French Revolution, in its heroic civil wars, drenched in blood, among peoples who aroused themselves to renew their nationalism, through tyrannical regimes that enslaved the people from who they drew the legitimacy of their rule. The psychosocial process was expressed in the exaltation of power for its own sake. The political rulers who succeeded in attaining it, through democratic processes or violent revolution, claimed that they held it not only in the name of their people but by virtue of being the embodiment of the popular will, expressing its collective will, and therefore their personal rule was the concretization of popular sovereignty, or the “spirit of the people” ruled through them. We shall show later that the Romantic retreat from Christianity and from the classical humanism of the pagan nature religions nourished the ultranationalism and anti-Semitism that took the place of Christian Jew- hatred. Romantic idolatrous secularism attacked both Christianity and Judaism, which because of their common enemy fought on the same side of the barricade, defending monotheism and idealistic humanism. But 214 eliezer schweid

Romanticism had an effect on Christianity (particularly Catholicism), on Judaism (particularly Hasidism), and on secular Jewish nationalism. Nega- tion of the Exile, negating the Jewish existence that was created in exile, negating the exilic rabbinic establishment, the aspiration to return to the Bible, to Hebrew, and the Land of Israel, which was the national homeland of the people of Israel, were enhanced by internalizing the Romanticism of the Jewish Haskalah movement in general and of the Zionist movement in particular. One could say that the secularism of modern Jewish nationalism partook, at its peak and climax, of Romantic secularism, that set up nationalism and saw in it a secular alternative to religion. Ultranationalist Romanticism, even as it strove for power, was not able to solve the problem of being cut off from nature, which followed from the development of technological civilization. Just the opposite. Romanticism exacerbated the problem when it succeeded in installing power-hungry totalitarian regimes. In the wake of this event there began the most cata- strophic crisis, from which ensued two world wars in the twentieth century, the crisis in Western culture called the “crisis of humanism,” which is seen as a crisis following from the trauma of abandoning nature and being cut off from it. But this departure was not in the direction of return to the metaphysical Kingdom of Heaven of the Catholic Church and rabbinic Judaism, but in the opposite direction, to the direction of life in material, artificial, scientific-technological civilization, whose motivating spirit is conceptual and mathematical, that is to say, abstract, primarily because it denies emotion and its ethical values. Its pronounced materialism is expressed in a selfish hedonism, a sensual, libidinal hedonism that seeks compensation by denying the value of the emotional life and the life of inner spirit. In both respects, this was an exit from nature into an artificial civilization, into a technological-hedonistic Tower of Babel that Western civilization built for itself. The tower did not indeed ascend to heaven, even though it was higher than the original Tower of Babel, for its build- ers discovered that there is no heaven, and that God does not rule over them. The height of the tower was a substitute for heaven, and in place of God they enthroned the human tyrant. We note that the cutting off from nature was realized not because of the transition to an all-embracing artificial civilization, but also through sanctification of the pleasure-seeking human libido, that was presented as natural. Even the satisfaction of these instincts, as pleasures for their own sake, turned against their natural tendency and inner law: cutting off sexual pleasure from the purposes of procreation, cutting off the pleasure of eating and drinking from the the drama of secular history 215 purpose of healthy nutrition, cutting off love from the obligation to raise and educate children. The result was immediate: all kinds of bodily degen- eracy and destruction. Similarly, in order to provide pleasures, which are satisfactions for their own sake—a never-ending task, for the hedonistic urge can never be satisfied—the mighty technological civilization started to destroy its entire natural environment and to dig under its own foundation. This is the absolute opposite of Judaism and Christianity, as well as of original humanism, but not a return to nature, rather an exit from it and cutting off from it, by destroying it.

Act Three: The Exit from Nature in the Opposite Direction

I will not be long in describing the life outside nature in the opposite direction, which started with applying the dreams of Romanticism in the realm of social and political life and the appearance of the materialistic countermovements that opposed Romanticism in the name of the natural and social sciences. This description is given in my long essay, “Humanism, Globalization, Postmodernism, and the Jewish People.”5 I will describe here the processes of exit that served their purpose after World War II. At first, the Romantic movements presented themselves as continuing the legacy of the humanistic Renaissance in greater depth—a return to greater depth in nature and greater depth in the natural sources of the civilization, in order to connect the members of Western culture to their roots and in so doing to correct what technological civilization had managed to spoil. Romanticism did not deny the importance of the scientific and technological achievements for human happiness. Scientific and technological development was separated from philosophy; it was instituted as a separate university discipline, and it continued to progress at an increasingly accelerating rate. The Romantic movements conducted their wars in the universities, the salons, the theaters, the concert and opera halls, in journals and literature. Their war was on a dominant position in the culture that had developed on the foundations of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. This was a war about education, about ethical values, about taste, about lifestyle and manners, and about politics. At the same time, there appeared on the agenda the problem of the status of the social classes who in their day had been dominant in the feudal

5 The third essay in this collection (pages 97–157). 216 eliezer schweid

ecclesiastical-imperial civilization, and had not yet lost all their power. In the face of this crisis they attempted, naturally, to return to their former status, for they were secular, but their secularism radiated in the light of romantic nostalgia the halo of the pagan tradition that had been preserved in the depth of their nationalism-laden Christianity. In the eyes of the Romantics, the Middle Ages were not “dark” as they had appeared in the eyes of the Enlightenment proponents, while the “Enlightenment” itself was starting to fade. On the contrary, the Middle Ages appeared more natural, closer to Mother Earth, and more human than the sick and decadent urban mass society. It is obvious that the Romantics interpreted and reapplied the old values in order to adapt them to the attainments of modern technology, which could no longer be reversed. Therefore, when the war over culture broke out to the political plane, it was not conducted around the “objective” stance of the sciences and technology. All the contending camps wanted to avail themselves of its advantages. What, then, did they fight over? Over the form of government. The proponents of progress fought to defend liberal democracy (the heir of idealistic humanism in the political realm). The proponents of reaction fought originally to preserve the aristocratic regime, based on the nobility and monarchy. Both sides sought to enlist the legacy of humanism on behalf of the dogmatic ideologies that spoke to their hearts. This was forced, and it necessitated a revolution in philosophy of the political leadership that sought to wage its campaign against the reactionary forces of Romanticism. What was the most effective ammunition available to them in the battle of ideas? Of course, science, which continued to celebrate its undeniable achievements against the idealistic humanistic philosophy that was under attack. On this intellectual basis arose parties that prided themselves on continuing the project of the Enlightenment with the tools of materialistic philosophy—the socialist and communist parties. Romanticism presented itself as renewing the values of the society and culture of an earlier pagan civilization. It was attached to the myth of a nature filled with gods, and it brought it to life by the magic power of art—the myth of nobility, the myth of European man fighting, prevailing, loving woman, turf and homeland, mastering, ruling the earth, fraterniz- ing with the gods and deifying himself in their place. Man is destined for lordship, and the palm will go to him who proves himself stronger, more courageous, wiser, and more cunning than all other creatures and human competitors, the man who strives for power, who knows how to use it and how to protect the fruits of his conquests. It was clear that technology, especially the technology of warfare and the modern army, the drama of secular history 217 knowing how to deploy it in war for the conquest of resources and markets, fit this myth and served the politics that applied it in the aspiration for reform in the society and state in order to restore imperial secularism to its good days. The technology was accepted with blessing, as it was the source of economic power, financing the war (heroic capitalism) as well as the source of military power drawing from the economy and serving it through conquest of resources and markets. The modern state gradually turned into an accomplished war machine, and its citizens turned into armies serving it through productive labor and fighting power. All were subordinate to one collective will. This was a return to nature that turned liberal-humanistic nationalism into chauvinistic ultranationalism. Political Romanticism faulted idealistic liberal humanism especially for its individualism and the idea of ethical autonomy of the personality that was at its core. For the sake of the nation, one had to forge the masses of citizens together and to raise them up from an accidental aggregate of anonymous individuals fighting with each other over their lives and property into a united and disciplined collective entity serving the ideal of noble mastery embodied in the image of the leader, who was raised to the rank of a demigod. Thus would arise a master-nation, a conquering nation, whose greatness was expressed in its rule over all other nations and over the whole world. This was the ideal for whose sake arose the national imperium, in which was embodied the happiness of the one in which all participated. The basis of the Romantic-national ideology, which boasted the halo of nature, was the pseudoscientific doctrine of race. It reworked Darwin’s theory and turned it into a biological-political myth. The unity of the nation was rooted in common genetic origin, in blood-kinship. To this was added the distinction between higher and lower human races, which came to justify the lust for dominance of the nation that saw itself as the most racially pure and noble of all nations. Indeed, brotherhood of race promotes absolute collective unity. Not an aggregate of many individuals, but a single natural-physical identity represented in all of the individual “copies,” the same as every drop of water represents the ocean. When unity arrives at its perfection and climax, this is an ecstasy of merging together, experienced by the military marches and formations that became a state ritual, and in war—expressing one’s readiness to die for the homeland. In other words: According to the political Romantic doctrine of the nation, the people comprise a unified collective entity. All its members are only cells in its tissues, and its strata are its limbs. The head that sits on top is the leader; the whole body, namely the people—if it is healthy 218 eliezer schweid and not decadent—obeys him, for the good of the head is the good of the body; victory of the head is victory of the body; mastery of the head is mastery of the body; happiness of the head is happiness of the body. The social-political application of this ideology is a totalitarian regime. But when one comes to establish the administrative reality that imple- ments and actualizes it, the image of a natural organism gives way to the artificial, technological image of a well-oiled efficient machine, to which human beings serve as the accessories, wheels, levers and bolts, and the fuel burned in its motor. Only one man—the leader—stands above it in order to run it and direct it to its target, and it obeys him mechanically, because a machine has no thought of its own. This is the iron military discipline that prevails over the state and the whole community of its citizens. It is clear from this that the return to nature turns in this way to a myth in its negative sense—an ideological fiction that can be realized only through propaganda that resorts to ideological suggestion, as was put into practice and turned into brainwashing technology in the hands of mass movements. But the real significance of application of this ideology by a totalitarian military regime is the absolute subordination of human nature to one natural motivation that has been extracted from its organic context—the motivation of the drive to power expressed in domination. Indeed, this conclusion is correct as it applies both to the leader standing in charge and the functional leadership under him. It, too, is subjugated to the mechanical apparatus that exploits its human nature, the nature of the people, and the nature from which the machine draws off the resources it needs. Still, this is not the Romantic return to the depths of nature but a departure from it, in the opposite direction from religion, in order to live in an artificial material sphere, outside nature and at its cost. In Western culture, two movements struggled against Romanticism in their efforts to continue the path of the humanistic Enlightenment by finding a solution to the ethical, social, and political dilemmas that it begat. But both of them did this through a one-sided development of the two spiritual powers that the original humanism relied on: the power of ethical reason, as manifested in culture (liberal humanism), and the power of intellectual science and technology (historical materialism). The first movement strove to implement in the social and political field the idealistic philosophies that remained faithful to the humanistic philosophies of Baruch Spinoza and Immanuel Kant. On one side stood Georg Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Schelling, who sought a way to overcome the dilemmas that stymied Kant in his cautious approach to Romanticism. On the the drama of secular history 219 other side, the neo-Kantian and positivistic philosophers (among whom the philosophy of Hermann Cohen was prominent) tried to overcome the same dilemmas by bridging the gap that Kant created between rational philosophy and intellectual science, yet with the aspiration to preserve the supremacy of ethical reason (“culture”) over scientific-technological civilization. The second movement effected a complete revolution that was expressed in abandoning personalist-subjective idealism and giving oneself over unequivocally to the objectivity of science. The first tendency spent its forces in the social and political field with the heroic effort to realize the original humanistic idealism of the Renais- sance and the Enlightenment. Man as he ought to be, man as created in the image of God but without setting himself up as a god, with the help of pioneering elites, should build a new ethical society here on earth, and be an example to their people and to humanity. When World War I broke out, and all the more in its wake when the totalitarian regimes rose to power, which led Western culture into World War II, it became clear to these faithful pioneers what had been clear from the outset to their critics: these were utopias. Theoretically it may have been possible to realize them with the help of idealistic elites, devoted heart and soul and ready to make any sacrifice, but it was impossible to present them as a way for the masses, or for entire nations, if only because the forces that fought against them in the form of the Romantic and materialistic movements were so much stronger in their dominance in the civilization. The countermovements to Romanticism, which led in the direction of scientific materialism, led in fact to realizing the same kind of social- ethical and political reality that the Romantic movements led to, but from the reverse side. The materialist movements assumed that the inner law of progress in nature and civilization was objective, that is to say, necessary. This was not a matter of ethical choice between good and evil, or idealism versus villainy. Man by his nature was neither good nor bad. He wanted to live and be happy, and his happiness was the satisfaction of his needs. This being the case, a war for survival was being conducted in nature. Each creature deployed its strengths, and man deployed his intellectual superiority through the civilization that he established for himself. But there too, the struggle was conducted by way of striving for superior efficiency, which would be achieved with the help of rationalizing the processes of production and consumption until complete equilibrium would be achieved among all participants in the production-consumption hierarchy, and it would be established through an effective political constitutional organization in which all would be happy. 220 eliezer schweid

This was a developmental process, and like any such process in nature it must pass through several stages comprising a progressive unfolding of conflicts proceeding from the war for survival in nature. These conflicts were drenched in blood and replete with suffering, but they were necessary and positive because they drove the world forward. At each stage, a certain social stratum would arrive in power, due to its greater strength and efficiency, but immediately it would provoke the exploited to rise up against it, and they would start to press it forward. The social and political conflicts were natural forces of progress embedded in civilization, and at each stage they would determine the culture appropriate to express them. These were iron laws that drove history. Therefore the only real choice that people had was whether to identify with this inner law (if they understood it) or to be swept away passively by its necessity (if they failed to understand it). Happy is he who understands it, for he will lead and not be trampled! In any case, the iron laws of progress were the source of the conflicts that caused suffering, but they would also solve them. The assumption was that humanity was very close to the end of the road, because the intensity of the social and national conflicts was growing more severe and arriving at its climax. In the end, a world war would break out. The old order of yesterday would be shattered, and from the foundation stone of nature would sprout the perfect scientific-technological civilization, which would satisfy the needs of all through its inexhaustible resources. Then all humanity would unite, transcending social and national divisions, and there would be a single humanity, maintaining itself on the basis of its own inner law, which is its freedom and its happiness. If so, as in the political movements of Romanticism, scientific materialism mandated the creation of the uniform totalitarian state, war as a necessity of life, destruction of the corrupt civilization of “yesterday” in order to build (from nature, but at its cost) the different civilization of tomorrow and its domineering spreading-out over the whole world as the way to realize its social and political objectives. Indeed, based on this common denominator they faced off for the war of the one against the other, dragging into it also the liberal national states, which had established their own exploitative empires for the purpose of their happiness. The Second World War concluded with the destruction of the modern civilization and culture of yesteryear. But one may conclude that the destruction was so complete because of the scientific technology that served the war and its objectives with marvelous efficiency. In this respect, the destruction of the old technological civilization was also its the drama of secular history 221 great victory. It proved itself. It proved that if one identified with it and saw in it the supreme goal in which all efforts were invested, it could develop with such rapidity that we could not see its limit. In other words, it would be possible to build, with its help, in place of the modern West- ern civilization that was destroyed, but directly from the foundation stone of nature-as-to-be-henceforth-defined (in which is to be found an unlimited storehouse of resources waiting to be exploited), a new civilization of worldwide extent—the “global village.” It is a replacement for that older nature, which was good but unable to realize its goals. Henceforth, on the plane of all-embracing existence in which humanity maintains itself, everything will be artificial and technological, better than natural, except for copulation and childbirth, eating and drinking and a few other primitive needs that man has by way of nature, such as the need to visit from time to time in “nature preserves” where nature is preserved as it was. Of course, the proper facilities are maintained there so that the human being can “return to himself” without inconvenience and remember his source, from whence he came and to where he is going. The Jewish people, which wanted (and was also forced) to integrate among the peoples of Western culture, participated in all these movements while seeking to preserve its uniqueness. Within it, all these movements appeared. The Jewish people fought on all fronts, and was a victim of all of them. Zionism provided the national path to save itself from physical and spiritual destruction while establishing a civilization and creating a modern Jewish culture in two countries in which there remained a stretch of “virgin,” uncivilized nature: the Land of Israel and the United States. This was an exceptional opportunity to realize the Romantic desire to return to nature in order to grow from it a humanistic civilization in actuality, not through a violent revolution and conquest of power, but through pioneering work. Indeed, it was a very hard task, especially in the Land of Israel, but in its time it appeared possible. Without a doubt, this was a humanistic utopia. The emigrants from Europe, destroyed by its revolutions and its wars, knew this from the outset. But from the perspective of the Jewish people—ostracized and persecuted, whose masses were sunken in grinding poverty—the realization of this dream was the minimum, without which they could not save themselves from destruction and survive as a people with its own cultural identity. From their viewpoint, this was not a utopia but a realistic possibility, though very difficult of realization. The pioneering elites who immigrated to the land succeeded in realizing it in part through their settlement efforts and the new Hebrew culture that developed there. But after the 222 eliezer schweid establishment of the state of Israel they did not continue it, and after it became economically and militarily stabilized, Israel saw itself forced to become integrated in the process of globalization among the prosper- ous Western countries; it abandoned its utopian pioneering project and destroyed its foundations with its own hands. Indeed, if in its pioneering phase it returned to nature, in the humanistic sense of this ideal, it also departed from it, in the direction opposite to the religious-exilic direction against which it had initially rebelled. I will offer the opinion that this turning-point, in the path of Zionist realization, exacerbated the confrontation between the secular-national movements in the Jewish people and the religious movements, particularly the ultra-Orthodox. It generated a hornets’ nest of contradictions, both from the side of the secular movements and that of the religious movements, in whose light the definition of the confrontation can be elucidated. The secular movements rejected religiosity, and the religious rejected secularity, but in a way that made the religious movements dependent on the secular civilization, while it made the secular civilization dependent on the religious movements, which provided the only source through which the civilization could preserve its unique identity as a Jewish civilization. This was a deadly embrace, from which neither side could free itself without transforming itself and transforming the mutual relation from a negative to a positive one. This was the case because in the global civilization, secular existence has taken over the entire space of economic, political, and social functions and has co-opted the spiritual- cultural functions to its economic and psychological-political needs. The fundamentalist religious movements were forced to enter into this space in order to support themselves, but also in order to intensify their self- segregation from the threatening secular realm. To their surprise, they discovered that this was not only possible but all too easy in the postmodern secular existence, which had completely forgotten its humanistic values. At the same time, it was possible to preserve a spiritual separatism that broadcast the negation of its environment, and to enjoy all the benefits of technological civilization, even without participating in its production, because the secular movements were obligated to permit this out of fidelity to the political principles that are necessary for a society of abundance based on the free marketplace. In this strange reality that has been formed, all the confronting movements suffer—both the secular and the religious—from inner contradiction and outer hostility, and they live in tension at the threshold of an explosion. the drama of secular history 223

With this, the drama of secularism has come to a conclusion. It was born from the forced alliance between the Roman Empire and the Chris- tian Church, which ended in divorce. It thrived in the original period of humanism. It split and exploded during the crisis of humanism and it dissipated like a virtual bubble under postmodernism, to the point that it was left without any content except for its opposition to religious fundamentalism, which in turn had been strengthened by its own protest against secularism. The tension that resulted from secularism’s inner contradictions is now at the point of explosion. The danger of destruction that it harbors continues to grow, because the impressive economic and political successes of the idea of globalization have run their course and we now clearly see its costs, whether ethical, socioeconomic, or political. Revolutionary forces strive against continued globalization from within, while international wars militate against it from without. A third world war, more destructive than its predecessors, has already begun in effect in various places in the world, through the war of terror, and at the same time we see materializing the threat of eco-destruction through technology, whose development knows no limits, whereas the limits of nature’s resources are clearly in sight. We may still ask the question: Is it possible to bring about a revolution, while there is still time, in order to return to nature and to live in it in moderate comfort, within the limits of its capabilities, without destroying it, and with the aspiration to achieve ethical-spiritual progress, not just material-technological progress? In other words: Is it possible to have a renaissance of the humanistic Renaissance, without its material success bringing about betrayal of its spiritual values? Does human nature harbor also the possibility to maintain itself on a human level while remaining faithful to its ethical understanding?

Interview with Eliezer Schweid

June 3, 2012

Participants

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Leonard Levin, editors Eliezer Schweid, author

Your life story mirrors that of Israel in the twentieth century, from the Yishuv to the State of today. How did your religious upbringing and intellectual training evolve in this context? What brought me to write my works on Judaism? The background of my relation to Judaism is, first of all, the education that I received in my parents’ home, in school, and in the Zionist-socialist youth movement in which I was educated—all this, against the background of the reality of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and Europe in that period. My parents were both members of the Third Aliyah.1 They were not “religious” people, but they also did not define themselves as “secular,” but as “free.” This was deliberate on their part, because they had a profound connection with the Jewish people, the Jewish heritage, and Jewish culture. My mother came from a home of Mitnagedim, namely, the opponents of Hasidism. My father, however, came from a Hasidic family. His Hasidic soul was quite strong. He was a poet, and his deep Hasidic religiosity was expressed in his poetry—in what he wrote and what he sang. He sang a great deal. In this respect, there was a great difference between me and most of my peers in school and in the youth movement. In no way did I accept Joseph Ḥayyim Brenner’s “negation of the Diaspora” in which many youth of the Yishuv were raised. To be sure, I accepted “negation of the Diaspora” in the sense that the situation of the Jewish people in Exile was bad. But the negation of Jewish existence, of the Jewish essence and the Jewish heritage, was very far from my heart. My parents implanted

1 Third Aliyah: the wave of immigration to the Land of Israel immediately after World War I, consisting largely of ḥalutzim whose progressive social ideology helped reinforce the foundations laid by the Second Aliyah (1904–1913) including the establishment of the kibbutzim and the Histadrut workers’ cooperative. All of these had a profound influence on the character of the Jewish homeland-in-the-making. 226 interview with eliezer schweid in me a feeling of profound identification with the Jewish people, and a feeling of identification with its heritage. For my mother, this was ethics, and she spoke of Judaism as ethics. For my father, this was his deep religiosity. To be sure, this did not express itself in a normative religious life regimen, but it was definitely expressed in the fact that Shabbat was Shabbat, and that holidays were holidays; they fasted on Yom Kippur, and they fostered our connection with the Jewish heritage. There was also a connection with Yiddish literature, and a very deep connection to Bialik’s poetry, which influenced me from a very young age. All this should be seen against the background of daily reality in pre- State Israel. I belonged to the generation of the sabras, that is to say, the first generation Israeli-born children. This generation saw itself as the continuation, in the full sense of the word, or even the realization of Zionism—or more specifically, of Socialist Zionism. My coming of age— my entrance into the sense of adult responsibility as a member of my society—was during the War of Independence (1947–1949). Thus, I belong to the generation for which the War of Independence was a formative experience. Within that context we had to determine our positions on the whole gamut of national issues—the Holocaust, the struggle with Great Britain and with the Arabs, all the problems of the internal division between the religious and the secular. Especially crucial for shaping my Jewish orientation was the great split that took place in the Labor movement, including the kibbutz movement and the Mapai party, as well as the youth movement (Ha-Maḥanot ha-Olim,2 of which I was then a member). On the one side were advocates of the Soviet orientation, with its extreme negation of the Diaspora with respect to the relation with the Jewish people and Judaism. On the other side, you had the Social Demo- cratic path, the path of Berl Katzenelson (1887–1944), for example, who were dismayed at the in-fighting and the alienation from Judaism and the Jewish people [that the pro-Soviet party manifested], and began to work in the opposite direction. I was influenced by this second path. I knew Berl from reading his books. But the man who had the strongest direct personal influence on me was Katzenelson’s disciple, Yehuda Sharett (1901–1979). All his activity—especially his musical activity—made a

2 Ha-Maḥanot ha-Olim: a socialist-Zionist youth movement, established in 1929 and continuing in existence to this day. Especially in the pre-State period, this group was a major educational and socializing organ for the youth of the progressive communities and contributed materially to the development of the socioeconomic infrastructure by establishing forty-two kibbutzim. interview with eliezer schweid 227 strong impression on me, with respect to the connection to Judaism and Jewish sources. This helped shape my intellectual orientation.

What exactly does “continuity” mean to you? You seem to take “continuity” as self-evident, a necessary outcome of your upbringing. But how can continuity with the Jewish tradition be imparted today? Many Israelis today do not feel continuity with the Jewish past. We have to ask ourselves why they do not feel a sense of continuity. After all, this did not happen by accident. Rather, it followed from the educational messages that were transmitted by their parents. As I said, we in the youth movement encountered, at a very early stage, the Brennerian positions and the connection to the Soviet Union as to a second homeland, as well as a sense of alienation towards the Jewish people and the Jewish heritage. Most of my peers negated the Diaspora without even knowing, what this Diaspora was, at all—they weren’t given any opportunity [to learn about it]. Brenner, at least, knew what he was negating. You could see that apart from his Jewish heritage, there was nothing at all for him to respond to. But what prevailed among those who grew up on his teachings was complete illiteracy when it came to knowledge of or connection with Jewish traditional sources. This connection was simply not transmitted. It did not exist. I think that if the education in the schools would change—and now, precisely now, I sense that there is a vague tendency toward change, then this message will be transmitted after all!

Can you elaborate on the gap between secular and religious Jews in Israel? How do you account for this rather tragic gap that has become much deeper over time? What can be done about the gulf between these two communities? First of all, I don’t know if your claim, according to which the disconnect between religious and secular in the broadest sense has worsened, is correct. The fact is that, hand in hand with this, we now have a renaissance of Jewish identity in Israel, especially in secular circles. Furthermore, in the period of my youth, the concept of secularism still had a positive meaning. For instance, if you asked a Jewish person, what does it mean to be secular, he would have said, I am a socialist, I believe in mankind, I am a humanist, I have a humanistic world of values, with which I side. This was a defined form of identity. Today, if you ask a secular person, what is secularism, he will tell you, “not religious.” “I know what you are not. What are you?” Then, when you ask him, what he is, he is left speech- less. Now, if you were to ask, what is the meaning today of being a secular 228 interview with eliezer schweid

Jew, the meaning is simple, it follows directly from the mentality of the free-market economy. To be secular means to be a Jew of [material] civilization, to be a technological Jew, who sees the center of his life truly on this plane of economic activity and economic success and the happiness that ensues from it. It has no spiritual meaning. From the spiritual point of view, the Orthodox claim that secularism is devoid of content used to be incorrect, but today it is correct in the full sense of the word. The secular are upset when one tells them this, but this is the reality, and in the depths of their hearts they know this to be true. And this is not easy for them. That means, excuse me, it is very easy for them, but they are very dissatisfied with it.

Is it possible to be a secular Jew in a Spinozistic sense? One can be. There can indeed be some intellectual Jews for whom this is their position. But in no way do I think that there is any spiritual movement of this kind—any group of people who live in some cultural milieu with this background. This does not exist. Not in any way, shape or form. Not even in the universities, which to all appearances are the foci of the secular culture.

What about The Encyclopedia of the Modern Age?3 Does it not offer a counterexample of a positive conception of secularism that has consistency and depth and that does not identify secularity with material infrastructure or technology? Certainly, from the point of view of the encyclopedia’s editors, Men- achem Brinker and Ya’akov Malkin, this is indeed the case. But with respect to the public, its spiritual content is nonexistent. The vast majority of the secular public is illiterate and ignorant with respect to Jewish literature, including the little they have read of modern Hebrew prose and poetry. Look at the youth who are educated in today’s schools. They read the Bible with difficulty and without comprehension. They have no ability to deal with a text such as Agnon, for example, or Bialik. It’s a closed world to them.

3 The reference is to Zeman yehudi ḥadash: tarbut yehudi be-idan ḥiloni, mabbat entzy- clopedi (A New Jewish Age: Jewish Culture in a Secular Era, an Encyclopedic View), 5 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter, 2007). interview with eliezer schweid 229

Your writings encompass many genres and it is possible to see you as a Jewish philosopher, an intellectual historian, a cultural interpreter, an educator, a cultural critic, and a social critic. How do you integrate all these activities? What comes first for you in terms of intellectual identity? Are you first of all a philosopher, or an educator? Is there some internal order in all of these activities, or is it one integrated whole? I see myself first of all as an educator. I think that philosophy is first of all an educational endeavor. My conception of philosophy is fundamentally Socratic. I try to look at things from a holistic point of view, to see something as a totality, to approach it dialectically in order to appreciate the interaction of the whole and its parts, and the effects of this whole process. I think that it may be permitted to me to define myself as a philosopher in this sense.

Should the philosopher always deal with practical matters, such as education? Yes. The philosopher’s primary task is to educate the people.

How do you define Jewish philosophy, and is there a difference between engaging in philosophy and engaging in Jewish philosophy? I give this question two complementary answers. The first is from the point of view of the founders of the discipline of Jewish philosophy in the modern academy—in Germany, as well as in the Hebrew University, which was originally German in its intellectual character. Today the orientation of the Hebrew University is essentially American, and therefore it neglects Jewish Studies completely. But as long as the Hebrew University was German in its self-perception, it actively fostered Jewish Studies. The discipline of Jewish philosophy entails coming to terms with philosophy as a universal discipline. Philosophy did not develop first among the Jews or within Judaism, but rather in Greece; philosophy constituted the legacy of ancient Greece. Living in exile, the Jewish People had to accommodate to its cultural environment, especially in Europe. Jews employed the tool of philosophy to achieve an accommodation between a worldview rooted in divine revelation and a worldview rooted in the primacy of human intellect and reason. In this respect, what characterizes Jewish philosophy is the effort to create the connection and complementarity between the revelational stance and the cultural-philosophical stance, with all the implications that this has for all areas of life. 230 interview with eliezer schweid

Does this mean that the methodology of Jewish philosophy is unique? No. If one conceives philosophy as a universal discipline, then the methodology of Jewish philosophy is the same as the methodology of philosophy in general. Of course, this assumes that Jewish philosophy is a single, unified discipline. This assumption was correct until the period of the Enlightenment; from that point on it ceased to be correct, and there emerged different streams of philosophy that debated with one another. The second answer to your question is as follows: I had a complex relationship with the founders of the discipline of Jewish philosophy, such as Julius Guttmann, who in a certain sense was my immediate teacher at the Hebrew University.4 I agreed with him to some extent, but also disagreed with him in another respect. The very fact that it is possible to find the common denominator between philosophy-rooted-in-reason and divine revelation tells us that in Judaism as well there is a wisdom that it is possible to regard as philosophical. I think this is quite obvious. The Hebrew Bible [Tanakh] is a book of wisdom.

Is the Bible in its entirety a book of wisdom, or only certain parts of it? The Bible contains wisdom. It is based generally on certain wisdom— in the sense of the ability to define the objectives of a worthy life, and to find the ways and the means through which to realize them. The emphasis in this way of thinking is not on the aspiration to knowing the truth for its own sake, but putting truth into practice. The watchword is ve-asita otam: “and you shall do them.”

If the emphasis is on action would you say that the Bible is a book of practical philosophy? The Bible is a book of wisdom, even though it does not present it in the form of a philosophical discipline. But there is an implicit philosophy

4 The statement that Julius Guttman was Schweid’s “immediate” teacher is meant symbolically. Guttmann died in 1950, three years before Eliezer Schweid began his studies at the Hebrew University. However, Guttmann shaped the discipline of the study of Jewish philosophy in the form in which Schweid encountered it as a student, and the impress of Guttmann’s method is visible especially in Schweid’s exposition of medieval Jewish Philos- ophy—Schweid’s The Classic Jewish Philosophers can be regarded as a successor to Gutt- mann’s Philosophies of Judaism. Elsewhere, Schweid acknowledges Shlomo Pines, Gershom Scholem, and Isaac Baer as the teachers of Jewish thought with whom he studied directly, but it was Guttmann’s method that he adopted through much of his career. interview with eliezer schweid 231 underlying it, that one can tease out from the sources. This is in fact what the midrash did. The method that generated the literature of the midrash—both the aggadic midrash and the halakhic midrash—is a philosophical discipline that is special to this culture.

So do you see the rabbis as philosophers? Yes! The designation of the rabbis as Talmidei ḥakhamim—(literally “disciples of the wise” or “sages”)—is simply a Hebrew translation of the concept of philosophos (“lover of wisdom”), in the fullest sense. It is no accident that one speaks not of “a wise man” but of “the disciples of the wise,” out of the same logic that one speaks of a “lover of wisdom” and not “one who is wise” in Greek. It is one who aspires to the truth, who aspires to know it. Wisdom in its entirety is contained in God. But a talmid ḥakham is one who seeks it.

So what is Judaism? Is it the wisdom embodied in the tradition? Judaism is wisdom. What distinguishes it in this respect is the message of ethical monotheism. But I understand the concept of ethical monotheism as Nachman Krochmal understood it. That is to say, it is not a matter of religious dogma, but is rather a matter of one’s total way of relating to existence—the aspiration to unity that brings itself to expression through action. Action is its test.

In what way is the definition that you have just given different from the definition that Reform Judaism gave in the middle of the nineteenth century? Isn’t this view identical with the views of Abraham Geiger or Hermann Cohen? If we mention nineteenth century Reform Judaism in the same breath with Hermann Cohen, we gloss over the fact that Hermann Cohen was very different from Abraham Geiger. If I have an argument with Reform— and I do have an argument with Reform—it is not because of the form of definition of the monotheistic idea. Precisely Reform Judaism, as opposed to Krochmal, tried to formulate the Jewish position through concepts very similar to Christianity, on a dogmatic basis. Abraham Geiger, for example, was dogmatic. The great debate between him and Moses Mendelssohn, and Mendelssohn’s disciples in modern Orthodoxy revolved around this question. Does Judaism have dogmas, or not? Geiger and his Reform followers argued that Judaism has dogmas. They tried to crystallize the Jewish religion in a quasi-Christian, ecclesiastical framework. What I do 232 interview with eliezer schweid not accept in Reform is its churchlike character, and its rejection of the national element of Judaism.

Your critique might be relevant to the nineteenth century, but in the twentieth century Reform Judaism took a more traditional position that was anchored in Jewish sources and practices. Indeed yes, and therefore I am prepared to live in peace with Reform. Certainly, I am prepared to live in peace with all the currents in the Jewish people, even though I have some argument with every one of them. But in principle there can be a conversation among them. There is no reason to denounce Reform Judaism as non-Jewish.

So would you, like classical Reform thinkers, define the genius of Juda- ism as ethical monotheism? If not, what is in your view the contribution of Judaism to Western culture? In large measure, ethical monotheism is the contribution of Judaism to Western culture; undoubtedly. This is both its contribution, and also the background to the profound love-hate relationship with Judaism, which has pervaded Western culture throughout its entire course.

Does this mean that Judaism is condemned to experience a tragic conflict with its cultural neighbors? Yes, Judaism is condemned to a tragic conflict. Perpetually. The Maimo- nidean self-definition of connection to Judaism as opposition to idolatry, applies up through our time. I think that we are living today in an age of idolatry of the worst kind, of unequalled severity, which has penetrated into the Jewish people.

What are examples of contemporary idolatry? Do you mean the relentless pursuit of wealth? The pervasive use of technology? Yes, the world of the market economy is idolatry in the full sense of the word.

You are among the few Jewish philosophers who have thought systematically about the philosophical meaning of technology, on the one hand, and about the ecological crisis, on the other hand. For many contemporary philosophers the critique of technology is part of environmental philosophy. Do you see yourself as an environmental philosopher? What is the connection between your critique of technology and other themes that have engaged you deeply? interview with eliezer schweid 233

The question of ecology is closely tied with my critique of technology. In this respect, I see myself as a disciple and successor to Aaron David Gordon. I think that Aaron David Gordon was a prophet of the ecological movement.5 Already at the beginning of the twentieth century, he saw problems that no one was able to diagnose. In many respects, my current work seeks to apply the insights of A. D. Gordon to the reality we are living in today.

How can we revive Gordonism for the twenty-first century? What do we need to do with the legacy of A. D. Gordon in order to adapt it to the twenty-first century? Every generation needs to undertake a critical reexamination, in order to see how these ideas apply to our time. It needs a critical eye, without a doubt. It requires seeing where Aaron David Gordon erred. And I think that he erred in many places. He had a critical message, which was quite clear and well-developed. He did not have a positive message. He had no halakha capable of application. His luck, I would say, was that he had several disciples who in the course of criticizing him created a halakha which perpetuates his approach.6

Who are these disciples? I think, especially, first of all, Berl Katzenelson. Berl Katzenelson was the great halakhist of the Labor movement.

Who today reads Berl Katzenelson? I don’t think that one needs to read Berl Katzenelson today, one needs to read Gordon. Berl Katzenelson formulated halakha, and it is the nature of halakha to be a creature of its time, and to relate to its time. As the Jew- ish tradition states: “When its time is past, the sacrifice is no longer valid.” This, perhaps, is the secret for the ongoing development of Judaism. But

5 A. D. Gordon (1856–1922) made aliyah in 1904 and for the rest of his life devoted himself to agricultural work and writing. His major essay, “Man and Nature” (which has not been translated into English except for a few excerpts) analyzes the alterations in human consciousness and quality of living resulting in the rise of technological civilization and alienation from a natural environment. 6 Gordon was adept at coining concepts such as ḥavvaya (“life-experience”) and tzim tzum (“constriction”) which contributed to the theoretical analysis of the problems he described. It took others to create the life-forms in Israeli life, such as the kibbutz and the Histadrut, which offered a practical remedy to those problems—what Professor Sch- weid calls “halakha” by analogy with the prescriptive life regimen of traditional Jewish existence. 234 interview with eliezer schweid scholars should read Berl Katzenelson and become familiar with him. There are several pieces of Berl Katzenelson that I would definitely intro- duce into the curriculum, for instance, his lectures in his great seminar, in Volume 11, his lectures on the history of the Jewish workers’ movement, where he establishes his positions regarding Jewish socialism and the character of Jewish socialism, this is a very important work that one should read, study, and use for education. He has several other articles of this kind that have a principled and general-philosophical character. But all the large volumes in which he dealt, in effect, with detailed halakha, with the Labor Movement and its trade union, the Histadrut, its time has passed. Those issues are not relevant today. As for other disciples of A. D. Gordon besides Berl Katzenelson, I would mention Shlomo Lavi (1882–1963) in Ha-Kibbutz ha-Meuḥad, and Eliezer Lipa Joffe (1882–1944) in the Moshavim Movement.

How can this material speak to Diaspora Jewry? How can the teachings of A. D. Gordon and his disciples be relevant to Diaspora Jews, especially in North America? In the last analysis, Gordon addressed the entire Jewish people. His view of the Land of Israel was very close to Aḥad Ha-Am’s concept of the spiritual center. He believed that the Land of Israel could be the spiritual center that unites the Jewish people, but he did not hold the view that all the Jew- ish people should immigrate to the Land of Israel, and he did not “negate the Diaspora” in any way. In one of his essays, he speaks of the educational work that one must invest on behalf of Diaspora Jewry. His general message applies equally to Diaspora Jewry, for it is a question of values. Here in Israel I have had recent experience of a revival of interest in Gordon. Just yesterday there came to me a very young man, one of the trainees of a pre-military training program. Although he is an observant Jew, he approached me specifically in order to learn more about A. D. Gordon. Similarly about a year ago, I was asked to speak about Gor- don in the Beit Berl, the college associated with the Labor Movement. I see a strong interest in Gordon today among observant as well as secular Israelis. For Gordon to become relevant to Diaspora Jews, his writings will have to be translated into English or other languages and this is not a simple task since Gordon’s writings are difficult. To make Gordon accessible to non-Hebrew readers will require many explanatory notes to facilitate understanding of his unique thought. Gordon had a very unique style: he did not identify his sources, whether the texts that influenced him or the ideas he argued against. For example, in his most foundational essay interview with eliezer schweid 235

[“Man and Nature”], that explains everything from the ground up, he conducts a basic, principled debate with Marxism. This is clear to someone who reads it and analyzes it thoroughly, but Gordon does not mention Marx by name. If the reader is not aware that Gordon is arguing with Marx, they cannot understand what he is saying.

Gordon was also very influenced by Russian religious philosophers, especially Vladimir Solovyov, but unless one understands his Russian sources, it is difficult to make sense of his ideas. This is true, but Gordon also has a very strong background among Jewish philosophers. One of the sources most influential on him was Moses Hess. And Spinoza too had a very deep influence on him, as Gordon conducted a methodological philosophical debate with Descartes and Kant. One can identify with precision where he alludes to these prior thinkers. Also, the spirit of Hasidism was an important constituent of his worldview.

Of the whole list of Jewish philosophers, is Gordon the most important for you? There are other important Jewish philosophers who shaped my ideas. The teachings of Nachman Krochmal were very important to me as well as certain aspects of Hermann Cohen’s philosophy. With respect to providing a well-developed philosophical articulation of Judaism, Hermann Cohen is definitely the prime source for modern Jewish philosophy.

So what would be the canon—a canonical list—of Jewish philosophy? Is there a Jewish philosophical canon? If it were up to you to draw up this list and include thirty or fifty books, what would this list be? First, in my view, the Jewish canon is also the canon of Jewish philosophy. I would not exclude the Hebrew Bible [Tanakh], nor the Mishnah, nor the Talmud from this canon. All of these comprise the cultural milieu from which Jewish philosophy draws. I do not see Jewish philosophy without the Hebrew Bible—the Hebrew Bible is so essential! The challenge is truly to study the Bible in depth, not to learn it with the concepts of biblical criticism, but to read it truly from the perspective of its own ideas and contents, and from the perspective of its values—its teachings of ethics, society, and faith.7

7 See Schweid’s preference for “faith in” over “faith that” in Buber’s distinction, articulated in the second essay in this book (page 55). 236 interview with eliezer schweid

What in rabbinic Judaism do you consider philosophical or sources for Jewish philosophy? I think that within rabbinic culture the central focus of the world of Jewish thought—of the Oral Torah, for a series of generations—is the prayer book. The prayer book has to be seen as a philosophic text. I am now a member of a committee that the Ministry of Education established, in order to arrange from scratch a core curriculum of the “culture of Israel” in the schools. The idea that guides us is that there should be basic texts such that it would be inconceivable that a Jew does not know them. The Bible is obvious. But we should also include such staples of the daily prayers as the Shema service and the Shemoneh Esreh prayer. The Shemoneh Esreh prayer contains within it the rabbinic philosophy of the Mishnaic period.

And what about medieval Jewish philosophy from Saadia Gaon onward? How important is medieval Jewish philosophy for contemporary Jewish education? In academic departments of Jewish thought, one must study the entire canonical sequence, from Saadia Gaon to the present. This is especially crucial, if one wishes to become an expert in Jewish philosophy, either as a scholar or a teacher. As for students in Israeli high schools I would like to see the core curriculum include philosophical texts such as Baḥya ibn Pakudah’s Duties of the Heart, Judah Halevi’s Kuzari, and Moses Maimo- nides’ Eight Chapters and selected chapters from the Mishneh Torah.

You would not include Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed? I think that we should honor Maimonides’ instructions, who saw the Guide for the Perplexed as a book intended for the intellectually perfected few, those who know Greek and Arabic philosophy well, and who have become perplexed; only they could understand his book! I think that the vast majority of people of our age, not only the young, are unable to deal with the Guide for the Perplexed. Although it is a marvelous text, unlike any other text in the Jewish tradition, the Guide for the Perplexed is a book for the learned few.

What about modern Jewish philosophy? Who are the thinkers (besides Hermann Cohen and A. D. Gordon) who should be studied if one is to become an educated Jew? I think one should know something about Spinoza, this is essential. I think that one should know something of Spinoza’s On the Improvement of the Understanding. I think it is an incomparable pedagogic book. interview with eliezer schweid 237

Does Spinoza present a problem to Orthodox Jews? In no way. If an Orthodox Jew still sees Spinoza as a heretic, it is therefore forbidden to read him. In this regard my statement could be problematic for Orthodox Jews. But there were quite a few modern Orthodox Jewish thinkers who read Spinoza with great pleasure and were influenced by him. They did not always say this openly, but when you read them, it is possible to identify Spinoza’s influence. Besides Spinoza I consider Moses Mendelssohn, Nachman Krochmal, Samuel Hirsch, and also Samson Raphael Hirsch to be very important modern Jewish thinkers who should be studied by Jews today. Obviously their thought has to be translated from German into English to make their ideas more accessible. Other important modern Jewish philosophers include Moses Hess, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Martin Buber, and their work is available in English translations.

We come now to the twentieth century. One of the problems that you speak about a great deal in your writings is postmodernism. Is there a postmodern Jewish philosophy? I am very critical of postmodernism and the debate about postmodernism is still in progress. It is very difficult to determine what the Jewish philosophical canon should include since the debate is not resolved. I do not think that we are required now to determine whom to include in the curriculum and whom to exclude. The debate about postmodern philosophy has not reached that point.

Why not? We are already in the twenty-first century. Postmodernism begins only after World War II, not a moment earlier. The Second World War is the breaking point that gave rise to postmodernism and therefore we lack historical perspective to determine the lasting value of postmodern thought.

What about Jacques Derrida? Should we teach Derrida as a postmodern Jewish philosopher? In a university setting, yes, I would include Derrida as example of postmodern Jewish philosophy, but I would not include Derrida in a high school curriculum.

What about [Emmanuel] Levinas? I know that there is a lot of excitement about Levinas today, but I do not endorse Levinas’s project. I can tell you directly. In my view, he has added 238 interview with eliezer schweid not a single word to Hermann Cohen, but Levinas said the same thing in a way that is much less understandable.

As you know, Levinas has many admirers, not only Jews. I know. This is a matter of fashion. In my view, there is no chance that this will last, because I have a very deep feeling that even the majority of the learned who engage in this do not understand him fully. The linguistic-stylistic issue with him is unusually exaggerated, and there is a mighty torrent of words from which it is difficult to extract the idea that he intends.

But there are those who think they do understand Levinas. Yes. I often wondered about it myself. I actually met Levinas and con- versed with him in person, and found him very congenial. But when I analyze his philosophical writings, I do not see him go beyond what Hermann Cohen said about Judaism.

Let us turn to one of Levinas’s interesting ideas, namely responsibility, an idea which is also very important in your philosophy. How do you define responsibility? What is it, to be responsible—for another person, or a culture? What is the responsibility of today’s Jew? The basis of the concept of responsibility is also in the Hebrew Bible, and it is connected with the idea of the covenant. The covenant is the central core of the social and political ethical conception of the Bible. It is the assumption that human beings are able to survive as human beings only on the basis of mutual responsibility for each other. In this framework, every right of mine that I demand from my fellow-person is also my obligation towards him, and every obligation that I have toward my fellow is the right that I have from him. This recognition, which Hermann Cohen defined as relation8—the notion of relation, this is its meaning. This is the idea of covenant, in essence. This is what shapes the ethic of responsibility.

But today, the Jewish people—it seems to me—is so fragmented. How can one expect of a Jew—an outright or self-declared secular Jew, let us say—to feel a sense of solidarity, or relation, or concern towards, let us

8 “Relation”: specifically, “correlation” in Cohen, Religion of Reason § VIII.4, “The Dis- covery of Man as Fellowman” (New York: Ungar), 114. interview with eliezer schweid 239 say, Neturei Karta? They are both Jews, they both belong to the Jewish people, but not to the point of the one part having positive emotions toward the other part. What can you say about the current lack of solidarity or sense of responsibility? Reciprocal relationship without a doubt, requires mutual respect. It is a two-way street.

So who is the guilty party in this story? It is a question of education. Acquiring awareness of a relation of responsibility depends on an educational message that must be imparted and developed in all schools through the entire educational process. It certainly does not grow or develop by itself. The problem with respect to fellow-feeling in our time is that we live in a world of hyper-individualism. In such a world there is no relationality. There is only ego. And when the ego dominates human life the result is a breakdown of social relations, mutuality, and solidarity. So if we do not change this trend by returning to the classic humanistic concepts about human sociality, we will become disconnected from each other and concepts of relationality or responsibility will become incomprehensible or irrelevant. At that point, I am afraid, Western civilization will be lost. That the Jewish people will be lost is obvious. It will simply disintegrate. Individualism and globalization have brought the greatest spiritual calamity that has befallen the Jewish people. I consider it a spiritual calamity as well as a moral calamity because these forces have dismantled the most basic foundation of Jewish life. The Jewish people is a people based on family and community. It exists only when families exist, families that are united by a covenantal relation, and communities that are united by a covenantal relation. If one dismantles these basic units of the family and community, the Jewish people will be lost.

Given the primacy of Jewish peoplehood in your self-understanding, how should Jews relate to nations? What should be the attitude toward other nations or people, especially those with whom the Jews are now locked in political battle, such as Arab nations or the Palestinian people? You are asking me a question which is based fundamentally on the notion of individualism. I think that the concept of humanity is fundamentally conditioned on a consciousness of mutual responsibility. This is not because everyone has to think the same thing or to be the same thing. But it is all based on a consensual arrangement that makes possible the existence of mankind as a cultural entity. We have to remember 240 interview with eliezer schweid once more the simple Aristotelian truth, that man is a political animal by nature. If the basis for human political existence is negated, the very existence and development of this human creature as such is over and done with.

The political nature of humans still does not tell us how to resolve political differences or feuds. This is another way of asking you, what is your political philosophy and how does it enable you to face the political problems that face the Jewish people today? My answer is that we must return to Maimonides and the way in which Maimonides related to Aristotle’s definition. Maimonides said two very important things. The first is that man is political by his nature, in this sense, that he cannot exist or develop to be a human being, to continue to survive and function as a human being, except within the polis. But on the other hand, man is an antipolitical creature by his nature, because with respect to his bestial lusts, he is an egoist—a terrible egoist, possessed of cruel inclinations. He is a beast of prey, in other words. This is a deep conflict which can be found also in the Bible. There is a deep conflict between man’s bestial lusts and his reason, which makes possible man’s existence. In this respect, man is a problematic creature, for himself and his environment. In order to exist as a human being, man must strive to be a human being all the time—he must educate himself to be a human being all the time, and to this end, he must maintain the minimum of the moral foundation that makes this possible. If one makes this effort, one does not arrive at an ideal society. But if one strives to arrive at it, one forms a society in which, in the last analysis, it is possible to maintain one’s humanity. If one does not make the effort to do this, then we descend to the depths, and everything breaks apart. And that is what is happening today. We are not speaking of a messianic possibility of an ideal society. We are speaking of what must be done in order to survive [as humans]. Let me add one more thought here. We are all of us, in the modern world, the postmodern world, persuaded by the idea of progress. But progress in the measurable, tangible sense, exists only in the sciences and technology, because they are cumulative. From an ethical, social, and political perspective, there has been no progress at all. Human beings are born as little animals, and one must educate them in every generation to become human beings. In this respect, there are certain constitutive things that have not changed from biblical times to our own day. If we deceive ourselves into thinking we can escape the given nature of being human, then we find ourselves in the place we are in today. interview with eliezer schweid 241

Your political theory, then, is rooted not only in human nature, but also in the ability of humans to transcend their human limitation and aspire to a utopian end. In Judaism this is the messianic ideal. In Israel, messianism is very potent in certain circles. Is this also a form of idolatry in your view? Without a doubt, this is something false—and very dangerous in contemporary Jewish messianism. I think it is a definite part of the calamity that you inquired about earlier, of the split in the Jewish people, and the competing fanaticisms of the ultra-Orthodox on the one hand, and of the extreme secularists on the other. It is definitely an outcome of the messianic mentality. How should we define “messianism”? I would define the concept of messianism as the assumption that it is possible to arrive at absolute ideal solutions of the problems of human existence. As long as we do not learn that there are no such absolute solutions, that there never will be—we are in trouble.

This view echoes the ideas of Hermann Cohen, and yet, the messianic impulse in Judaism has simmered throughout Jewish history. The Jew- ish tradition has produced repeated messianic movements as well as critique of messianism. The messianic impulse follows from something which has characterized the Jewish people throughout its career, from the beginning, and which is also largely the source of its positive spiritual characteristics. We are a people who, by their own account—unlike the self-described origins of other peoples—did not begin as free and independent masters in their own land, but rather in slavery and in exile. The story is always the same in Judaism—it begins completely from the bottom of the social ladder. Such a narrative has enormous power. If you examine all the characters in the Bible, they are apparently very great figures, but their deficiencies are also great. Look at their sins—all of them. Moses, our Master, who is the most perfected of all, also sins. In fact, the first model that we have in the Jewish tradition of a tzaddik—a “righteous person”—is in the Book of Daniel.9 He is the first who is depicted as a perfect person. There is no perfect person in the Hebrew Bible up to that point. Not even one perfect person. It all

9 The Book of Daniel is dated by contemporary scholars in the Hasmonean period (second century BCE), and may thus be the last-composed book to enter the Hebrew Scriptural canon. 242 interview with eliezer schweid starts completely from the bottom, with a struggle, and this struggle strives toward something. At some point, after you see this struggle persisting and persisting, and you are looking for some advance, you don’t see any advance, but the opposite. Time after time, the collapse is even deeper. And the calamity that they fall into is even deeper. The development of the Messianic idea is born of these circumstances. In fact, the messianic idea is not rooted in the Torah. In the Torah, you have an idea of redemption that is not messianic. The messianic idea of redemption starts with the prophets. Against what background? Against the background of the calamity of the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians. All of a sudden, everything collapses. The aspiration, the recognition that only in the end of days, through God’s intervention, will we be able to arrive at some place in which it is possible to rest.

If so, is it correct to say that in some measure Jewish philosophy—or Jewish thinking—is political thinking? Yes, without any doubt. It is certainly political thinking. In its essence, it is political. It always was. Even those who argue that it was not political during the Exile, this is incorrect. It was political thinking all the time.

Even when the Jewish people did not enjoy political sovereignty? Jews forget this, that the Jewish community was a democratic framework, and Jews saw themselves living under the Kingdom of Heaven. And this is an emphatically political conception, which came to expression in a life regimen, in forms of organization.

If Jewish philosophy is inseparable from politics, what is the role of the history of history of philosophy? Is it a part of the activity or practice of Jewish philosophy? If you or I write Jewish philosophy, do we have to engage in the history of philosophy, or in constructive thought? What is the relation between the knowledge of the past and our response to what happens in the present? First of all, I want to go back and emphasize the fact that alongside progress in certain matters, there are constitutive, basic things that do not change in principle, but they change only in their situation or context or quality, but not in principle. The fact that I can read the Bible today and find it completely relevant, follows from the fact that the Bible deals with the constitutive, existential questions of humanity. They are valid today, as they were in the past. In this respect, every good philosophical text is always relevant. What changes is the forms of application and manifestation of the problems. interview with eliezer schweid 243

This means, that to educate a person to be a Jew is to educate him or her to be a philosopher? Yes. Indeed, I think that the fact that philosophy has become estranged from the active academic hierarchy, that in effect philosophy today is some sort of appendix, more or less, that gives you a bellyache—this fact is one of the consequences of the dominance of individualism. And if one wishes to be redeemed from this, one must restore philosophy to the place where it was before World War II.

Much of your social critique of contemporary culture revolves around the concept of hafratah. Depending on context, the term could mean “privatization” as well as “individuation” or perhaps even “individualism.” What exactly do you have in mind and why is this notion so central to your social critique? By hafratah I mean “individuation” (Individuatzia).10 It is one of the most pronounced tendencies that have developed in today’s leading intellectual elites, whether politically, or with respect to material civilization or spiritual culture. You see it clearly at the point at which the natural sciences became dominant, not yet divorced from philosophy, but render- ing philosophy superfluous. In the modern world everything is built on science. To build everything on science, out of the assumption that these are objective determinations that are not subject to debate. So we do not base our lives on philosophy, we base our lives only on science.

And this is mistaken, in your view. This is tragic. This is destructive. Our intellectuals forgot the capacity for dialectical contemplation, comprehensive, that sees a totality, and sees the problematic that is unfolding, and is capable of grappling with it. The claim that the social sciences are sciences, is false, and danger- ously misleading. Once, the social sciences were philosophical, before the war. Today, they have turned into imitators of the natural sciences. As if it were possible, through statistical methods, to forecast processes and program them. False! The failure of this is obvious; every day one can see

10 The choice of words is somewhat arbitrary. Schweid draws a distinction between the healthy individualism of Renaissance and Enlightenment humanism, which asserts the value of the individual integrated with a strong sense of social solidarity and responsibility, and postmodern individualism, which by his reading posits the rights of the individual as the bedrock value, to which all other values are secondary and subsidiary—if indeed they exist at all. 244 interview with eliezer schweid that this is a deceptive claim. In effect, this just provides grounding for the domination of technocrats, in all areas.

But what do you say to scientists who believe that you, with your philosophical methods, cannot arrive at the truth about the physical world? Do you say that the scientific outlook is refuted? Truly, this claim is patently refuted. Do you really think that it is possible to solve problems of morality or problems of society on a scientific basis?

No. But we have not succeeded in persuading scientists of the limitations of science. Where does this lack of success come from? It follows from the fact that at a certain point, the natural scientists succeeded in convincing people that the solution that they provided for problems were absolutely preferable to the solutions that religion was providing, or the solutions that humanistic wisdom was providing. We are solving issues of “practical halakha.” So it is well and good, as long as science was solving them. But now it is becoming clear that it is not solving them. Just the opposite is true—every scientific and technological achievement can be exploited for evil. Therefore, scientific and technological development that ought to serve the cause of human happiness, serves its downfall, and today this is plainly visible! It is impossible not to see it. I think that today the proponents of social science are already quite perplexed, because the Darwinistic theories that are at the basis of the free-market economy have obviously failed! It cannot be denied. This is the reality!

So what shall we do with the fact that the humanities in the United States and also in Israel have declined in stature and prestige? Are humanists today fighting a losing battle? It doesn’t have to be a losing battle. We find ourselves in a period where a renaissance is possible, just as there was a renaissance in the sixteenth century, “the Renaissance” par excellence. There is a cyclicality of periods of renaissance in life. I think that there are very clear signs of a beginning. I see it in the State of Israel. There are clear signs of a beginning of a renaissance, of young people who are starting to understand that they have no future—if they continue in this path, they have no future. I think that the task of the philosophers today is to carry out—to make themselves into a spiritual leadership that leads a renaissance movement. That is how I define their task today. interview with eliezer schweid 245

To what extent do you see your philosophical activity as a response to the Holocaust? Would you define yourself as a post-Holocaust thinker, or not at all? Or is this less relevant than other topics? The topic of the Holocaust is a topic that one cannot avoid, but I do not define myself as a post-Holocaust philosopher like other thinkers. I see the Holocaust within the cyclical pattern that Nachman Krochmal described, within the cyclical pattern of Jewish national history. Krochmal showed how cycles begin with a process of renaissance. When they arrive at their point of maximum prosperity, decadence sets in, followed by decline. I think that the philosophical effort must always be the effort of opposition to decline. This is all that we can do. Will we succeed? To the extent that we succeed, we will prolong the life of humanity. To the extent that we fail, we fail. I do not see the philosophical message as a messianic message. We have no final solution. I think that it is the strength of philosophy that it knows that one must go in the direction of a solution, but it also knows that it is impossible to achieve it—and that the only way to survive is to be in the process, in advancing towards, not in retreat.

This too resonates with the ideas of Hermann Cohen. Yes indeed, Hermann Cohen is most relevant to my thinking on this point.

As we move forward we also need to look back. How would you prefer to define your legacy, your message, for the coming generations? How would you want them to think about your philosophical activity, which is tremendous? What has been your philosophical task? I see my task as a philosopher, as an educator, and as one who—particularly in my current writings—tries to define anew the halakhic norms of existence for the Jewish people. This is my next book to be published soon: it defines the norms of existence of the Jewish people in its land and in the Diaspora.

This is a tremendous undertaking. Is it really possible to talk about what the Jewish people should do given the fact that Jews hardly agree on anything? Yes. I wish to summarize, on the basis of the struggles that took place throughout the modern period, the basic existential, ethical, political, cultural, and religious norms of existence, while contending with the problems of modernity and postmodernity. 246 interview with eliezer schweid

It seems to me that you assume a very high level of solidarity among Jews, as if the Jewish people comprise an organism with a life of its own, that lives by norms of sustenance, and that it is possible to define these norms. As you know, there is a very ancient Jewish wisdom that says, “You live, not by choice, and you die, not by choice.” One of the things that apparently our generation, which is post-individualist, must learn, is that it did not invent itself,11 and it does not exist for itself. Whoever claims that he is determined only by himself is mistaken since each one of us is determined by the collective to which one belongs, a collective that one did not choose. We do not choose our parents, not the people into which we were born, not the culture in which we were educated. And we are able to exist as human beings only if we live within the framework of what is given. You may say that nature brought us into existence, or you may say that God brought us into existence—in any case, this is where we are, and it is here that we must try to do our best. When we try to quar- rel as individuals over the definition of our identity, which the collective into which we were born has determined for us, we bring tragedy to this group, and to ourselves as individuals. We must try to imbue them with this awareness. I cannot say that success is guaranteed for us. But in my view, the continued existence of our people depends on being successful in this attempt. And the continued existence of Western civilization also depends on it.

We are returning again to the question of responsibility, solidarity, and relationality, but there is one thing we have not spoken of, as if it goes against this solidarity, and that is the matter of gender. To what extent is the understanding of gender, or the importance of gender, a philosophical problem in Judaism, in your view? Or is it not a problem at all? It is certainly a philosophical problem. I admit and confess that I have not dealt with this area. I certainly think that equality of rights is a self- evident matter. Women today struggle for their social status, they demand that justice be done for them, as an independent issue unique to women and not part of social justice in general. The feminist struggle has brought about great improvement for the social condition of a certain stratum of

11 This series of thoughts is very similar to those expressed in The Lonely Jew and Juda- ism. It is significant how the transition from alienated individualism to the lesson that one must belong to a people and a culture is a recurrent motif in Schweid’s thought over the course of the decades of his thought. interview with eliezer schweid 247 women—one could say, wealthy women, who belong to a higher class. For them feminism has improved social reality. But for most women, especially women of the lower socioeconomic classes, conditions have become worse, not because of feminism per se but because of market economy and rampant individualism.

Does that mean that we must adopt a socialist economy in order to address the needs of all women? Decidedly. Our current capitalistic society is built on systematic and pervasive injustice. Injustice for men and injustice for women. I think that also the lack of understanding, that the problem of injustice to women is not merely the problem of women, but also the problem of men. One must see men and women together and solve the problem of social injustice that challenges both sexes. The fact that the problem of injustice is not addressed as I think it should be addressed, dooms the whole struggle of women to failure.

It seems that much of your social critique is rooted in your kibbutz experience. Indeed, the kibbutz was one of the most daring attempts to fashion a just society of the kind you spoke of. So how do you see the kibbutz historically or philosophically? Is there philosophical value to this whole kibbutz experience, to this social experiment? The kibbutz was the ideal operative framework in a certain period, the period of settlement of the Land of Israel. It was an ideal form during the history of the Jewish settlement of the Land of Israel, up to the period of the establishment of the State. The kibbutz was the framework that provided the best solution for the ḥalutzim (pioneers) who arrived in the Land of Israel with the aspiration to build up the Land of Israel. I analyzed this at the time, and dealt a great deal with the problems of the kibbutz at the start of my career, when I was still a member of a kibbutz and wrote quite a few articles in the kibbutz journals dealing with this topic, and I foresaw what was going to happen in this area. I said this, and the kibbutz leaders were angry with me. At the moment that the State of Israel was established, the kibbutz movement lost its adaptation to its surroundings. Change was necessary. It was necessary to arrange things very differently, first and foremost, with respect to the status of the individual within the society. The arbitrary control of the collective over the individual could no longer be maintained. Its cost was too great for the benefit that it conferred. It had benefit for a group of poor people who wished to devote themselves to something. It gave them great power. It compensated for 248 interview with eliezer schweid many things. But it no longer did so, with the establishment of the State, when the new immigrants no longer wanted to come to the kibbutzim. The kibbutzim were required to assist in absorption of the new immigrants, which could only be done through contradicting the structural internal principles of the kibbutz. That is to say, through hiring wage labor. This was the only way. Great pressure was put on the kibbutzim. Ben Gurion exercised tremendous pressure on the kibbutzim to accept wage labor. And of course, the clique of marketers saw in this a great opportunity to enrich themselves. And I think that this broke apart the kibbutz. It was quite clear that it would break up the kibbutz. If you add to this the dissatisfaction—at the moment that the kibbutz becomes wealthy, the dissatisfaction of the individual, as an individual, who has not satisfied his own desires, becomes dynamite. So that is what happened.

That is to say, there was a communitarian experiment that did not succeed. I think that the framework that really succeeded and proved itself after the establishment of the State was the workers’ moshav (moshav ovdim), because they considered from the outset the status of the individual and took a balanced approach regarding the relation between the group and the individual.

So individualism itself is not the problem, the problem is to find the right balance between the group and the individual. Individualism pushed to an absolute means abolishing the relation between the group and the individual. What does individualism say? It says that the nation is an invented, imaginary concept. What exists is many individuals together, who gather together to pursue their common interests. At the moment that one denies that there is a collective entity, a familial entity, a communal entity, a collective entity, the moment that one denies this, we reach breakdown of collective identity. The question afterwards is, what kind of relation do you form between the collective entity and the individual who builds it? If the group strangles its members, or the individual enables the unit to live their lives?

By way of conclusion, where is Jewish philosophy headed in the twenty- first century? I do not like to engage in prophecy. I never asked myself, where is it headed, and decided on those grounds to operate in a particular direction. I thought, this is how I should operate, and so that is how I operated. interview with eliezer schweid 249

Philosophy will go wherever it chooses to go. I hope that it will go in the way that I think it ought to go.

Let me leave the future of Jewish philosophy open-ended and hope that other Jewish philosophers will provide an answer to it. Thank you very much for the time you have devoted to the interview. You have presented a serious challenge to all Jews and I very much hope that many will respond to the challenge by engaging your views that you have shared with us.

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Books

NOTE: All but one of the following books were originally composed in Hebrew. The Eng- lish translations of the Hebrew titles are for the convenience of the reader, but are not necessarily an indication that the work is available in English. Of the following 49 items, 14 have been translated into English in all or in part. In these cases, the English title and publication data are included in the same entry.

.Three Watches. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1964—שלוש אשמורות .1 Studies in Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters.” Jerusalem: The—עיונים בשמונה פרקים לרמב”ם .2 Jewish Agency, Division of Youth Immigration, 1965 (republished, Jerusalem: Akade- mon, 1989). -R. Joseph Albo’s Book of Principles. Edited with introduc—ספר העיקרים לר’ יוסף אלבו .3 tion and commentary by Eliezer Schweid. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1967. Yearning for—הערגה למלאות ההווייה: פרקי עיון בשירת ח”נ ביאליק וש’ טשרניחובסקי .4 the Fullness of Being: Studies in the Poetry of H. N. Bialik and Sh. Tchernichowsky. Mer- chavia: Sifriyat ha-Po’alim, 1968. Maimonides and His Circle of Influence (lecture series). Edited—הרמב”ם וחוג השפעתו .5 by Dan Biegelman. Jerusalem: Akademon, 1968. The History of Jewish Philosophy from—תולדות הפילוסופיה היהודית מרס”ג עד רמב”ם .6 Saadia Gaon to Maimonides (lecture series). Edited by Gilead Bareli and Shimon Levi. Jerusalem: Akademon, 1968. At a Crisis: Judaism and Zionism in the State of—עד משבר: יהדות וציונות במדינה יהודית .7 Israel. Jerusalem: S. Zack, 1969. English translation: Israel at the Crossroads. Translated by Alton M. Winters. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973. -The History of Jewish Philoso—תולדות הפילוסופיה היהודית: המעבר מיה”ב לעת החדשה .8 phy: The Transition from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. Edited by Zilla Kopenhagen and Dan Biegelman. Jerusalem: Akademon, 1969. The Individual: The World of A. D. Gordon. Tel Aviv: Am—היחיד: עולמו של א”ד גורדון .9 Oved, 1970. English translation (excerpts): “The Zionism of A. D. Gordon.” Shdemot 7 (1977): 119–31; “The World of A. D. Gordon.” Shdemot 17 (1982): 46–61; “A. D. Gordon ‘On Work.’” Shdemot 26 (1986): 5–13. -Faith and Reason: Stud :טעם והקשה: פרקי עיון בספרות המחשבה היהודית בימי הביניים .10 ies in Medieval Jewish Philosophical Literature. Ramat Gan: Masada, 1970. Contemporary Sources of Jewish National—מקורות המחשבה הלאומית היהודית בת זמננו .11 Thought. General editor, David Hardan. Choice of texts, general preface, and introduction to individual selections by Eliezer Schweid. 7 vols. Jerusalem: Jewish Agency, 1970–1973. The Lonely Jew and Judaism. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1974. English—היהודי הבודד והיהדות .12 translation (excerpt): “Judaism and the Solitary Jew.” Shefa Quarterly 2, no. 4 (1981): 38–53. :The Faith and Culture of the Jewish People. Jerusalem—אמונת עם ישראל ותרבותו .13 S. Zack, 1977. בין אורתודוכסיה להומניזם דתי: המגמות העיקריות בהגות היהודית הדתית של המאה .14 Between Orthodoxy and Religious Humanism: The—העשרים במזרח אירופה ומערבה Principal Trends in Religious Jewish Thought of the Twentieth Century in Eastern and Western Europe. Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute, 1977 (second updated edition, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Meuhad and Van Leer Institute, 2003). 252 select bibliography

The Changing Image of the Jewish People in Our—דמותו המשתנה של העם היהודי בדורנו .15 Generation (protocol of a meeting of Committee on Kibbutz Thought). Tel Aviv: Iḥud ha-Kevutzot veha-Kibbutzim, 1977. :Democracy and Halakha—דימוקרטיה והלכה: פרקי עיון במשנתו של הרב חיים הירשנזון .16 Studies in the Thought of Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1978. English translation: Democracy and Halakhah: Studies in the Thought of Rabbi Haim Hirschensohn. Lanham: University Press of America, 1994. History of Modern Jewish—תולדות ההגות היהודית בעת החדשה: המאה התשע-עשרה .17 Thought: The Nineteenth Century. Tel Aviv and Jerusalem: Ha-Kibbutz ha-Meuḥad and Keter, 1978. -National Home or Land of Des—מולדת וארץ יעודה: ארץ ישראל בהגות של עם ישראל .18 tiny: The Land of Israel in Jewish Thought. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1979. English translation: The Land of Israel: National Home or Land of Destiny. Translated by Deborah Greni- man. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985. Negation of the Diaspora” as an Element of the“—שלילת הגולה כיסוד האתוס הציוני .19 Zionist Ethos. Lectures in Zionism 1. Haifa: University of Haifa, 1980. Judaism and—היהדות והתרבות החילונית: פרקי עיון בהגות היהודית של המאה העשרים .20 Secular Culture: Studies in Twentieth-Century Jewish Thought. Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz ha-Meuḥad, 1981. Mysticism and Judaism According to—מיסטיקה ויהדות לפי גרשום שלום: ניתוח ביקורתי .21 Gershom Scholem: A Critical Analysis. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1983. English translation: Judaism and Mysticism According to Gershom Scholem. Translated and Introduc- tion by David A. Weiner. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985. From Judaism to Zionism, from Zionism to—מיהדות לציונות, מציונות ליהדות: מסות .22 Judaism: Essays. Jerusalem: Zionist Library, 1984. The Cycle of Time: The Meaning of the—סדר מחזור הזמנים: משמעותם של חגי ישראל .23 Jewish Holidays. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1984. English translation: The Jewish Experience of Time: Philosophical Dimensions of the Jewish Holy Days. New Jersey and Jerusalem: Jason Aronson, 2000. Together—or—יחד—או כל אחד לחוד? על היחס בין דתיים לחילוניים במדינת ישראל .24 Each to His Own? The Relation between the Religious and Secular in Israel. Tel Aviv: ORT, Department of Technical Instruction, 1987. ,Modern Hebrew and Jewish Culture—התרבות העברית והיהודית החדשה: העבר וההווה .25 Past and Present. Jerusalem: Ministry of Education and Culture, 1988. :History of 20th-Century Jewish Thought. Tel Aviv—תולדות ההגות היהודית במאה ה20- .26 Devir, 1990. English translation: Jewish Thought in the 20th Century: An Introduction. Translated by Amnon Hadary. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992. :Rethinking—חשיבה מחדש: פריצות דרך במחשבה היהודית הדתית והלאומית במאה ה20- .27 Breaking New Ground in Jewish Religious and National Thought in the 20th Century. Jerusalem: Akademon, 1991. Wrestling until Daybreak: Searching for Meaning in the Thinking on—מאבק עד שחר .28 the Holocaust. Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz ha-Meuḥad, 1991. English translation: Wrestling Until Daybreak: Searching for Meaning in the Thinking on the Holocaust. Langham: Uni- versity Press of America, 1994. Belonging to the Jewish People: A Personal View. Tel—להיות בן העם היהודי: מבט אישי .29 Aviv: Eked, 1992. To Tell—להגיד כי ישר ה’: הצדקת אלוהים במחשבת ישראל מתקופת המקרא ועד שפינוזה .30 That the Lord Is Just: Theodicy in Jewish Thought from the Bible to Spinoza. Bat Yam: Tag Publishing, 1994. Between Catastrophe and—בין חורבן לישועה: תגובות של הגות חרדית לשואה בזמנה .31 Salvation: Ultra-Orthodox Responses during the Holocaust. Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz ha-Meuḥad, 1994. ,The Idea of Modern Jewish Culture. Tel Aviv: Am Oved—לקראת תרבות יהודית מודרנית .32 1995. English translation: The Idea of Modern Jewish Culture. Translated by Amnon Hadary. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2008. select bibliography 253

-Post-Zionist Zionism: Collected Articles. Jeru—הציונות שאחרי הציונות: אסופת מאמרים .33 salem: Zionist Library, 1996. The Foundations of Liberty—יסודות החירות והצדק החברתי לאור חזונם של נביאי ישראל .34 and Social Justice in the Vision of Israel’s Prophets. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University and Jerusalem Center for Study of the Jewish Community, 1996. :The Goals of Zionism Today. Edited by Haim Ofaz. Jerusalem—מטרות הציונות היום .35 Ministry of Education, Center of Public Relations, 1997. The Relation to the Other in—היחס לאחר במקור המקראי של מחשבת ישראל ובזמננו .36 the Biblical Source of Jewish Thought and in Our Time. Jerusalem: Ministry of Educa- tion, Culture and Sport, Center of Public Relations, 1998 (reprinted in entry #39, Jewish Humanistic Education in Israel: Content and Methods, 2000). :Our Great Philosophers—הפילוסופים הגדולים שלנו: הפילוסופיה היהודית בימי הביניים .37 Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 1999. English translation: The Classic Jewish Philosophers. Translated by Leonard Levin. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008. Prophets—נביאים לעמם ולאנושות: נבואה ונביאים בהגות היהודית של המאה העשרים .38 for Their People and for Humanity: Prophecy and Prophets in Twentieth-Century Jewish Thought. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1999. :Jewish Humanistic Education in Israel—חינוך הומניסטי-יהודי בישראל: תכנים ודרכים .39 Content and Methods. Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz ha-Meuḥad, 2000. A History of Modern Jewish Religious—תולדות פילוסופיית הדת היהודית בזמן החדש .40 Philosophy. Tel Aviv: Am Oved and Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies. Volume 1: The Period of the Enlightenment (2001). Volume 2: “Jewish Science” and the Rise of the Modern Religious Movements (2002). Volume 3: Confronting the Crisis of Humanism, Part 1: At a Historical Crossroads (2003). Volume 4: Confronting the Crisis of Humanism, Part 2: The Final Stage of Jewish Philosophy in Germany (2005). Volume 5: The Birth of New Jewish Centers in Israel and the United States (2006). English translation of Volume 1: A History of Modern Jewish Religious Philosophy, Volume 1: The Period of the Enlightenment. Translated by Leonard Levin. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011. 41. Jewish Identity in Modern Israel: Proceedings on Secular Judaism and Democracy. Edited by Naftali Rothenberg and Eliezer Schweid. Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute, 2002. הפילוסופיה של התנ”ך כיסוד תרבות ישראל: עיון בסיפורת בהוראה ובחקיקה של .42 -Philosophy of the Bible as Foundation of Jewish Culture: Inquiry into the Nar—החומש rative, Teaching, and Law of the Pentateuch. Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 2004. English translation: The Philosophy of the Bible as Foundation of Jewish Culture: Philosophy of Biblical Narrative. Translated by Leonard Levin. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2008; and The Philosophy of the Bible as Foundation of Jewish Culture: Philosophy of Biblical Law. Translated by Leonard Levin. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2008. -New Gordonian Essays: Globalization, Post-Modernism, Post—מסות גורדוניות חדשות .43 Humanism and the Jewish People. Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz ha-Meuḥad, 2005. The Path of the Spirit: The Eliezer Schweid Jubilee—דרך הרוח: ספר היובל לאליעזר שביד .44 Volume. Edited by Yehoyada Amir. 2 vols. Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 18–19, 2005. -The Wisdom of the Israel—חכמתה של מלכות ישראל: פירוש פילוסופי לספרי הכתובים .45 ite Monarchy: A Philosophical Interpretation of the Hagiographa. Tel Aviv: Yediot Aha- ronot, 2007. .Critique of Secular Culture. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2008—ביקורת התרבות החילונית .46 The Siddur of Prayer: Philosophy, Poetry—סידור התפילה: פילוסופיה שירה ומסתורין .47 and Mystery. Tel Aviv: Yediot Sefarim, 2009. English translation: The Siddur of Prayer: Philosophy, Poetry and Mystery. Translated by Gershon Greenberg. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2013. The Renaissance—המדינה היהודית במבחני הגשמתה: תחית הציונות התרבותית-חברתית .48 of Social and Spiritual Zionism. Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 2012. :The Norms of Existence of the Jewish People—נורמות הקיום של העם היהודי בזמן החדש .49 A Halachic-Philosophical Essay. Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz ha-Meuḥad, 2012. 254 select bibliography

Articles

NOTE: Only articles and book chapters published in English, French, German, and Span- ish are listed below. The reader proficient in Hebrew may find a complete bibliography of all Eliezer Schweid’s published Hebrew articles through 2004 in the 2005 Eliezer Schweid Jubilee volume listed above (entry #44).

50. “Jewish Ethics in a Time of National Crisis” (with Uriel Tal). CCAR 80 (1970): 170–95. 51. “The Middle East Crisis: Israelis Explore Alternatives” (symposium). Dimensions 5, no. 1 (1970): 7–10. 52. “New Ideological Directions after the Six Day War” and “Zionism and its Awareness of the Jewish Past” (symposium). Dispersion and Unity 10 (1970): 40–53, 155–72. 53. “Israel as a Zionist State.” Dispersion and Unity 11 (1970): 51–60. 54. “The Unity of the Jewish People.” The Jerusalem Programme 1968: An Analysis of the New Zionist Platform (Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization, 1970): 29–51. 55. “Zionism and Judaism.” Jerusalem Letter/Viewpoints 6, no. 3 (1971): 41–50. 56. articles in Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1971): “Ahad Ha-Am” (2, 440–48); “Heinemann, Yizhak” (8, 277–78); “Judah Halevi: His Philosophy” (10, 362–65); “Kedu- shah [of God]” (10, 362–65); “Miracle in Medieval Jewish Philosophy” (12, 76–79). 57. “The Revival of Judaism in the Thought of Bialik.” Encyclopedia Judaica Year Book (Jerusalem: Keter, 1974): 183–93. 58. “The Jewish Purpose of the State of Israel.” Mizpeh 1, no. 2 (1975): 9–19. 59. “Spiritual Leadership and the Force of Personal Example.” Ariel 42 (1976): 97–108. 60. “The Thought of Eliezer Schweid: A Symposium.” Participants: Dr. Peli, Dr. Rosenberg, Dr. Harvey, and Prof. Schweid. Immanuel 9 (1979): 87–102. 61. “The Authority Principle in Biblical Morality.” The Journal of Religious Ethics 8, no. 2 (1980): 180–203. 62. “Therefore Choose Life: Coming to Terms with the Holocaust.” Forum 45 (1982): 55–68. 63. “The Jewish World-View of Gershom Scholem.” Immanuel 14 (1982): 129–41. 64. “Two Neo-Orthodox Responses to Secularization. Part One: Samson Raphael Hirsch.” Immanuel 19 (1984–1985): 107–17. 65. “The Rejection of Diaspora in Zionist Thought: Two Approaches.” Studies in Zionism 5 (1984): 43–70. 66. “El Arte en Tanto Dilema Existencial en la Obra de Agnon.” Dialogo 16 (1985): 39–45. 67. “Jewish Messianism: Metamorphoses of an Idea.” The Jerusalem Quarterly 36 (1985): 63–78. 68. “Two Neo-Orthodox Responses to Secularization: Part Two: Rabbi Abraham I. Kook.” Immanuel 20 (1986): 107–17. 69. “The Justification of Religion in the Crisis of the Holocaust.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 3, no. 4 (1988): 395–412. 70. “The Critique of the ‘Science of Judaism.’” The Jerusalem Quarterly 45 (1988): 85–109. 71. “El Estado de Israel y la alia de la URSS.” Dialogo 21 (1991): 10–13. 72. “Son Nablus y Ariel Como Iafo y Negba?” (simposio). Rumbos 24 (1991): 107–14. 73. “The Holocaust as a Challenge to Jewish Thoughts on Ultimate Reality and Meaning.” Ultimate Reality and Meaning 14, no. 3 (1991): 185–209. 74. “The Jewish Character of the State of Israel.” Encyclopedia Judaica Year Book (Jerusa- lem: Keter, 1990–1991): 98–101. 75. “Recipient of Israel’s Highest Award, Defines Today’s Jewish Problem.” Avar ve-Atid 1 (1994): 15–20. 76. “Prophetic Mysticism in Twentieth Century Jewish Thought.” Modern Judaism 14 (1994): 139–74. 77. “The Impact of the Holocaust on Haredi Thought.” Avar ve-Atid 3 (1996): 44–55. 78. “Que es el Post-Sionismo?” Dialogo 26 (1996): 26–32. 79. “Beyond All That: Modernism, Zionism, Judaism.” Israel Studies 1 (1996): 224–46. select bibliography 255

80. “ Religion and Modernity in our Day.” Jewish Political Studies Review 8 (1996): 3–36. 81. “The Jewish People Fifty Years after the Holocaust.” Yad Vashem Studies 25 (1996): 1–30. 82. “The State of Israel in the Jubilee Year.” Jerusalem Letter/Viewpoints 393, no. 1 (1998): 1–8. 83. “The Multifrontal Cultural War in Israel.” Democratic Culture 3 (2000): 187–98. 84. “The Post Secular Era.” Jerusalem Letter/Viewpoints 440 (Oct 15, 2000). 85. “Ingathering and the Destiny of Israel.” Azure 13 (2002): 167–80. 86. “Jewishness and Israeliness.” Palestine-Israel Journal 8, no. 4 (2001): 91–92; Palestine- Israel Journal 9, no. 1 (2002): 84–93.

Book Chapters

87. “La Religion Juive dans la Culture Laique d’après Yitzhak Julius Guttmann.” In Hom- mage à George Vajda, edited by Gerard Nahon and Charles Touhati, 531–50. Louvain: Peeters, 1980. 88. “Elements of Zionist Ideology and Practice.” In Zionism in Transition, edited by Moshe David, 235–53. New York: Arno Press, 1980. 89. “Judaism as a Culture.” In Judaism as a Culture: Confrontation, 1–34. Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1980. 90. “The Attitude toward the State in Modern Jewish Thought before Zionism.” In Kin- ship and Consent, edited by Daniel Elazar, 127–47. Ramat Gan: Turtledove Pub., 1981 (second edition, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1997, 181–203). 91. “Martin Buber und Aharon David Gordon: eine Gegenüberstellung.” In Martin Buber: Bilanz seines Denkens, edited by Jochanan Bloch and Haim Gordon, 270–85. Freiburg i Br.: Herder, 1983; “Diskussion über den Vortrag von Eliezer Schweid,” ibid., 286–88. Reprinted in English: “Martin Buber and A. D. Gordon: A Comparison.” In Martin Buber: A Centenary Volume, edited by Haim Gordon and Jochanan Bloch, 255–73. Be’er Sheva: Ben Gurion University of the Negev, 1984. 92. “The Jewish State, the Jewish People and Zionism.” In Israel, the Middle East and the Great Powers, edited by Israel Stockman, 3–15. Jerusalem: Shikmona, 1984. 93. “The Rejection of Diaspora in Zionist Thought: Two Approaches.” In Essential Papers on Zionism, edited by Jehuda Reinharz and Anita Shapira, 133–60. New York and Lon- don: New York University Press, 1996. 94. “Israel as a ‘Spiritual Center’ for the Diaspora.” In After Four Decades: The Responsi- bility of Israel and the Diaspora to Jewish Life and Culture, 1–24. New York: Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, 1988. 95. “The Reconstruction of Jewish Religion out of Secular Culture.” In The American Juda- ism of Mordecai M. Kaplan, edited by Emanuel S. Goldsmith, 35–49. New York and London: New York University Press, 1990. 96. “Religion and Philosophy: The Scholarly-Theological Debate between Julius Gutt- mann and Leo Strauss.” In Maimonidean Studies: Volume 1, edited by Arthur Hyman, 163–95. New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1990. 97. “The Spanish Exile and the Holocaust: A Study in Jewish Spiritual Response to Catas- trophe.” In The Expulsion from Spain and the Holocaust: The Jewish Community’s Response, 1–17. New York: Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, 1990. 98. “Repentance in Twentieth Century Jewish Thought.” In The World of Rav Kook’s Thought, edited by Benjamin Ish-Shalom and Shalom Rosenberg, 349–72. New York: Avi-Chai, 1991. 99. “Changing Jewish Identities in the New Europe, and the Consequences for Israel.” In Jewish Identities in the New Europe, edited by Jonathan Webber, 42–54. London and Washington: Littman Library, 1994. 100. “Halevi and Maimonides as Representatives of Romantic Versus Rationalistic Concep- tions of Judaism.” In Kabbala und Romantik, edited by Evelin Goodman-Thau, Gerd Mattenklott, and Christoph Schulte, 279–92. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1994. 256 select bibliography

101. “Divine Intervention and Miracles.” In Divine Intervention and Miracles in Jewish The- ology, edited by Dan Cohn Sherbok, 35–56. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996. 102. “Prayer in the Thought of Yehudah Halevi.” In Prayer in Judaism, edited by Gabriel H. Cohn and Harold Fisch, 109–17. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996. 103. “Rosenzweig’s Contribution to the Curriculum of Jewish Thought.” In Paradigms in Jewish Philosophy, edited by Raphael Jospe, 166–81. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Press, 1997. 104. “Is There Really No Alienation and Polarization?” In The Jewishness of Israelis, edited by Charles S. Liebman and Elihu Katz, 151–58. New York: New York University Press, 1997. 105. “Judaism in Israeli Culture.” In In Search of Identity: Jewish Aspects in Israeli Culture, edited by Dan Urian and Efraim Karsh, 9–28. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999. 106. “Israel as a Jewish Democratic State: Historical and Theoretical Aspects.” In Jerusalem: City of Law and Justice, edited by Nahum Rakover, 125–45. Jerusalem: The Library of Jewish Law, 1998. 107. “Conversation on Teaching Judaism in Jerusalem.” In Learning in Jerusalem: Dialogues with Distinguished Teachers of Judaism, edited by Shalom Freedman, 262–65. New York: Jason Aronson, 1998. 108. “The Goals of Zionism Today.” In Zionism: The Sequel, edited by Carol Diament, 332–41. New York: Hadassah, 1998. 109. “Theological Confrontation with the Shoah as it Occurred.” In Holocaust and Educa- tion: Proceedings of the First International Conference, 85–97. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1999. 110. “Jewish Religion and Israeli Democracy.” In Free Judaism and Religion in Israel, edited by Yaakov Malkin, 7–29. Jerusalem: Milan Press and the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, 1999. 111. “Hermann Cohen’s Biblical Exegesis.” In Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentum: Tradition und Ursprungsdenken in Hermann Cohens Spätwerk, edited by Helmut Holzhey, Gabriel Motzkin, and Hartwig Wiedenbach, 353–79. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2000. 112. “Zionismus: Eine Ausprägung jüdischer Identität Unserer Zeit.” In 100 Jahre Zionismus, edited by Ekkehard W. Stegemann, 211–20. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2000. 113. “The Construction and Deconstruction of Jewish Zionist Identity.” In Ideology and Jewish Identity in Israeli and American Literature, edited by Emily Miller Budick, 23–43. New York: SUNY Press, 2001. 114. “The State of Israel, the Diaspora, and the Jewish People.” In The Jewish People at the Threshold of the New Millenium, 76–80. Jerusalem: Institute of the World Jewish Con- gress (Gesher special edition), 2001. 115. “Judaism in Israeli Culture.” In Jews in Israel: Contemporary Social and Cultural Pat- terns, edited by Uzi Rebhun and Chaim I Waxman, 243–64. Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 2004. 116. “Is Franz Rosenzweig’s Thought Relevant to Our Time?” In Faith, Truth, and Reason: New Perspectives on Franz Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption, edited by Yehoyada Amir, Yossi Turner, and Martin Brasser, 553–72. Munich: Verlag Karl Alber, 2012.

Book Reviews

117. review of Zakhor, by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi. Studies in Contemporary Jewry 2 (1986): 415–17. 118. “Did Herzl Think?” Review of Herzl, by Steven Beller. Manna 33 (1991): 22–23. 119. “The Self-Interpreting Mishnah.” Review of Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah, by Jacob Neusner. Conservative Judaism 44, no. 2 (1992): 79–86. 120. review of The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim: A Reader. Edited by Michael L. Morgan. Studies in Contemporary Jewry 8 (1992): 339–42.