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Leo Strauss' Debt to Franz Rosenzweig

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Leo Strauss' Debt to Franz Rosenzweig In 1932, Leo Strauss dedicated his first book, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, to the memory of Franz Rosenzweig. At first glance, this dedication seems to be a fairly straightforward expression of indebtedness and gratitude. Rosenzweig, the ba’al teshuvah who built a bewildering and often wondrous system of thought by synthesizing the German philoso- phic and literary traditions with his own unique understanding of Jewish life, demon- strated for Strauss the way in which the En- Leo Strauss’ Debt to lightenment’s project of belittling religion and relegating revelation to the private sphere had Franz Rosenzweig not only failed, but had produced an impover- ished conception of religion’s contribution to the mechanisms of governance. By showing Michael Schlie how philosophy and the positivism of scientific thought could not disprove the experiential moment of revelation, Rosenzweig in Strauss’ eyes brought renewed attention to the fact that liberalism, which attempts to displace the claims of a transcendental order or a higher law with the power of rational discourse, was incapable of justifying its political authority, and that the irrefutability of the existence of a revealed law meant that religion was integral to politics, not merely the object of privatiza- tion. Rosenzweig’s life and thought were living proof that assimilation was not the death of Orthodoxy and the validity of Torah. But the more one thinks about the possible meanings of Strauss’ dedication, the stranger it appears. Unlike Christianity, which according to Strauss does not understand revelation as a juridical phenomenon, Strauss equates revelation in Jewish tradition with the dispensation of the law, with precepts of obe- dience. Revelation is thus not an epiphantic experience, as when a deity reveals its being or presence, nor is it a moment of prophecy; Leo Strauss, 1926 rather, revelation is the giving of the Torah, a legal code that functions like a charter and binds its adherents to unquestioned obeisance. 52 This is not to say that Strauss conceives of the the social and political conditions under which law as irrational or tyrannical; indeed, we need German Jews lived before and after the estab- reason in order to interpret and mediate the lishment of the Weimar Republic, Rosenzweig law. But reason cannot determine why the law claims that the Jew is an apolitical being, a should be binding; it cannot uncover the ulti- citizen in name but not in deed. Rosenzweig mate or final ground of the authority of divine not only maintains that politics is antithetical injunctions. The command to obey is simply to a Jewish existence, but insists that partici- beyond humanity’s rational capacities. Revela- pating in global politics, especially as practiced tion in Strauss’ estimation is thus primarily by the modern nation state, actively thwarts a political tool: it represents the boundary the coming of the messiah and postpones the beyond which liberal discourse cannot pass; advent of universal redemption. The main it is the stopgap on the supposedly endless reason Jews must avoid politics is that govern- descent of relativism, the disease that afflicts ance, whatever its form (and it should be liberal democracy and negates the search for noted that Rosenzweig held liberal democracy justice and the best regime. in contempt, favoring rather an aristocratic In opposition to Strauss’ politicized monarchy), requires the exercise of power, and concept of revelation, Rosenzweig in his prin- thus the implementation of a legal system that cipal work The Star of Redemption famously de- uses force to protect itself and its citizenry. The politicizes revelation, transforming its content foundation of a Jewish state means for Rosen- from a matter of law (Recht) into an affective zweig a perversion of revelation, an attempt to command (Gebot). What God reveals to human- compel, through the law, the salvation of the ity is not the judicial groundwork necessary Jewish nation (Volk). As a message of unforced for founding the polis, but love, the emotional love, revelation teaches the futility of the desire counterweight to spiritual and intellectual to be a nation “like all the nations” (Deut. 17:14; relativism and the Archimedean point that 1 Sam. 8:20). changes the chaos of the world into a cosmos, Strauss’ and Rosenzweig’s respective that is, a well-ordered universe. For Rosenzweig, conceptions of law and revelation therefore once revelation—which can be summarized could not be more divergent; indeed, they seem by the command to “love thy neighbor as to project antithetical visions of how the world thyself”—becomes codified and indistinguish- should be understood and ordered. For exam- able from positive law, then it has already lost ple, although Rosenzweig undeniably looks to its efficacy, having degenerated into an alien salvage the notion of revelation from Enlight- regulation that a distant god imposes on an enment philosophies, he does so by stripping individual rather than being an erotic compul- it of the very political significance that Strauss sion through which the individual comes to maintains is the reason for revelation’s contin- know God’s presence. Revelation understood as ued challenge to the liberal order. The depiction law only alienates the believer and effectively of revelation in Star is thus a roadmap for the prevents him or her from having a meaningful eventual obsolescence of orthodox law and for relationship to God. the triumph of liberalism’s political impotence. This depoliticized notion of the root But if Rosenzweig does not agree with Strauss meaning of Torah has enormous consequences on the core issues to which the latter dedicates for Rosenzweig’s appreciation of modern Jewish his work, why does Strauss feel the need to rec- life. Notoriously, and perhaps in response to ognize Rosenzweig’s influence? This question 53 becomes even more urgent when one reads trying to save aspects of the human experience the 1962 “Preface” Strauss wrote for the English from being merely transitory. For Strauss, this translation of Spinoza’s Critique of Religion. defense of eternity entails arguing that there Here, Strauss describes himself as a “young are certain truths, discovered either by reason Jew born and raised in Germany who found or by revelation, which do not change from himself in the grip of the theologico-political culture to culture, and which exist independent predicament.” This predicament was exempli- of human ingenuity. For Rosenzweig, it means fied by two thinkers, Herman Cohen, a neo- demonstrating that although history radically Kantian philosopher and author of Religion of alters some cultural traditions—e.g. Christian- Reason out of the Sources of Judaism, and Rosen- ity and Islam—Judaism remains the exception, zweig. Once again, Strauss credits Rosenzweig since the Jewish nation, through its fidelity with a prominent role in his intellectual devel- to cultic practices, reenacts the experience of opment; the fact that Rosenzweig spent a great eternity within history. The effectiveness of deal of effort constructing a system of thought both of these arguments depends upon the which negated the political-theological pre- assumption that revelation and reason are dicament does not appear to temper Strauss’ incompatible, and that whatever explanations sense of indebtedness. The question therefore reason compiles to persuade the believer that remains: What is the intellectual connection revelation is a myth will fall on deaf ears. In between these two Jewish thinkers, who seem other words, saving eternity from history and to have very little in common? temporality requires a stalemate between To answer this question one must the two choices of how to live in the world. examine one of the most abiding and influen- According to Strauss, reason and revelation tial rubrics of Western thought—“Athens exist side by side, neither one refuting the and Jerusalem.” Although not a new phrase other; while according to Rosenzweig, eternity (Tertullian put these two metaphorical cities lives within history, although they do not di- in opposition at the beginning of the first mil- rectly mediate one another. What binds these lennium), the supposedly enduring conflict two thinkers together is thus the paradoxical between reason, i.e. Athens, and revelation, i.e. conviction that the conflict between Athens Jerusalem, has given the binary “Athens and and Jerusalem can never end if there is to be Jerusalem” a long intellectual life. The phrase any hope for truth or salvation. reflects the belief—vigorously defended by some but ridiculed by others—that there are two completely incompatible ways to know the truth or determine the best way to live. Understanding the implications of the struggle between reason and revelation is crucial for any interpretation not only of Strauss, but of Rosenzweig. Both thinkers agree that histori- cism, the doctrine that proclaims that the human mind is historically situated and that all truths are therefore provisional or delimited by a particular place and time, threatens to destroy the very idea of eternity. Both men are 54.
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