Franz Rosenzweig's Conversions

Benjamin Pollock

Description

Franz Rosenzweig's near-conversion to Christianity in the summer of 1913 and his subsequent decision three months later to recommit himself to Judaism is one of the foundational narratives of modern Jewish thought. In this new account of events, Benjamin Pollock suggests that what lay at the heart of Rosenzweig's religious crisis was not a struggle between faith and reason, but skepticism about the world and hope for personal salvation. A close examination of this important time in Rosenzweig's life, the book also sheds light on the full trajectory of his philosophical development.

Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction: Explaining Rosenzweig's Near-Conversion and Return
1. Revelation and World-Skepticism: Rosenzweig's Early Marcionism
2. Christian "World Activity" and the Historical Reconciliation of Soul and World: Rosenzweig's (Near-) Conversion
3. "Ich bleibe also Jude": Judaism, Redemption, and the World
4. World Denial and World Redemption in The Star of Redemption
Conclusion: Life and Thought Revisited
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• Theology
• Judaism
• Religion
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 12 août 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253013163
• Langue: English

Extrait

FRANZ ROSENZWEIG S CONVERSIONS
FRANZ ROSENZWEIG S CONVERSIONS
World Denial and World Redemption
BENJAMIN POLLOCK
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Bloomington Indianapolis
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2014 by Benjamin Pollock All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
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Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress .
Pollock, Benjamin.
Franz Rosenzweig s conversions : world denial and world redemption / Benjamin Pollock.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-253-01312-5 (cloth)
- ISBN 978-0-253-01316-3 (ebook)
1. Rosenzweig, Franz, 1886-1929-Religion. 2. Religion-Philosophy. 3. Conversion. 4. Redemption. I. Title.
B3327.R64P665 2014
181 .06-dc23
2014010215
1 2 3 4 5 19 18 17 16 15 14
FOR MY PARENTS ,
Scott and Karin Pollock
CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction: Explaining Rosenzweig s Near-Conversion and Return
1 Revelation and World Skepticism: Rosenzweig s Early Marcionism
2 Christian World-Activity and the Historical Reconciliation of Soul and World: Rosenzweig s (Near-)Conversion
3 Ich bleibe also Jude : Judaism, Redemption, and the World
4 World Denial and World Redemption in The Star of Redemption

Conclusion: Life and Thought Revisited
Notes
Bibliography
Index
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study offers a new account of one of the foundational narratives of modern Jewish thought: the story of Franz Rosenzweig s near-conversion to Christianity in the summer of 1913 and his subsequent decision, at the baptismal font three months later, to recommit himself to Judaism. The story that has dominated both scholarly literature and public Jewish discourse for the last sixty years presents Rosenzweig s personal transformation in 1913 as a turn away from a path of academic philosophy to a life of faith, a life which Rosenzweig first believed was possible only for Christians, but subsequently concluded-after experiencing a traditional Yom Kippur prayer service-was likewise eminently available for the committed Jew. I argue here that while this celebrated tale of Rosenzweig s near-conversion and return may well be inspiring and instructive as a myth about modern Jewish identity, there is little evidence to support it. Moreover, this prevailing account of Rosenzweig s conversions has been enormously misleading as an introduction to Rosenzweig s thought .
In the pages that follow, I argue that what lay at the heart of Rosenzweig s 1913 crisis was not a struggle between faith and reason, but rather a skepticism about the world and a hope for personal salvation that Rosenzweig came to identify with Gnosticism . Understanding the significance of Rosenzweig s struggle with Gnosticism during the summer of 1913 allows us to offer a compelling and coherent account of the series of conversions Rosenzweig underwent during this period; it gives us insight into the severity of the personal crisis that accompanied these conversions; and it enables us to explain-without reliance on dubious claims about faith experiences-just why Rosenzweig decided first to convert to Christianity, and then to return to Judaism. Rosenzweig s near-conversion and return are best understood, I argue, as moments in his gradual turn, over the summer and fall of 1913, to a historical conception of the realization of the Kingdom of God, in which the individual self and world are reconciled, and hence Gnostic dualism, and the world skepticism at its root, are overcome. Perhaps most importantly, then, this study makes a claim about why the Rosenzweig who underwent the celebrated personal crisis that he did in 1913 would have to go on to engage in the philosophical program that he later undertook. In the resolution to the struggle with Gnosticism at which Rosenzweig arrived in the fall of 1913, I show, we find foreshadowed the very vision of redemption that Rosenzweig would later articulate philosophically in The Star of Redemption .
The origins of this project lie in a question I asked myself one fall day in 2001, as I sat in the National Library in Jerusalem, reading Rosenzweig s Paralipomena. I was working on my dissertation at the time and was hunting through these wartime notes from 1916 for hints about the development of Rosenzweig s notion of systematicity. I was struck then and there by a remark Rosenzweig makes in these notes about the 1913 summer night-conversation that precipitated his famous crisis: What it means that God created the world and [is] not just the God of revelation-this I know precisely out of the Leipzig night-conversation of 7.7.13. At that time, I was on the best road to Marcionitism.
There was something all wrong about this remark. The celebrated story of Rosenzweig s near-conversion to Christianity and his return to Judaism-whose veracity I had had no reason to doubt up until then-depicts Rosenzweig s July 7, 1913 night-conversation with Eugen Rosenstock and Rudolf Ehrenberg as that transformative moment in which Rosenzweig discovers revelatory faith as a cogent response to the problem of relativism with which he had been struggling. Rosenzweig s 1916 remark seemed to get the direction of his transformation backwards. In direct opposition to the famous story of his near-conversion, the remark suggested Rosenzweig was already equipped with a sense of the God of revelation prior to that night-conversation, and that what he discovered that night had to do with creation, not revelation. Indeed, it suggested that Rosenzweig was on his way to being a Marcionite before being transformed through that night-conversation.
I don t think I would have identified Rosenzweig s 1916 comment as so diametrically at odds with the long-accepted scholarly account of Rosenzweig s 1913 summer of crisis, save for the fact that Marcion and Gnosticism were already on my mind in 2001. A graduate course on Weimar that I had the good fortune of taking with Christoph Schmidt at the Hebrew University a few years earlier had introduced me to the rise of theologies of world denial identified with Marcion and the Gnostics during the interwar period. More serendipitously, I came to Rosenzweig s remark about his own flirtation with Marcionism days after I had finished reading Ben Lazier s dissertation on the Weimar heretical theologies of pantheism and Gnosticism (later revised and published as God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination between the World Wars [2008]). As a result, Rosenzweig s profession of having been on the road to Marcionitism caught my attention. Rosenzweig was evidently identifying the position with which he entered the Leipzig night-conversation with both the God of revelation and world denial. How could such a Rosenzweig be converted to revelatory faith over the course of the July 7, 1913 night-conversation if he had already been committed to-an admittedly unusual form of-revelatory faith before that conversation?
I had no idea how to answer this question in 2001. I tagged Rosenzweig s 1916 remark as in need of future inquiry, and went back to my dissertation. It was not until early 2009, when my Franz Rosenzweig and the Systematic Task of Philosophy appeared in print and I was granted a junior research leave from Michigan State University, that I had the chance to follow up on the lead. It was with surprise, but also with increasing excitement, that I soon realized that nearly all of Rosenzweig s later comments about his 1913 crisis were consistent with the 1916 remark that had first caught my eye. A new account of the stakes of Rosenzweig s 1913 transformation came into view. It was very different from the conventional account. But it was supported by the evidence, and I found it to be both internally coherent and unexpectedly illuminative of Rosenzweig s mature philosophy. Further lucky discoveries of writings from Rosenzweig and Ehrenberg, dating back to the years prior to the night-conversation, some through correspondence and some through archival visits, allowed me to fill in gaps that remained, and to develop the account into the form you now have before you.
I want to acknowledge the many colleagues, friends, and institutions that have supported me in the research and writing of this book. At a moment when the last thing I wanted to do was write another book on Rosenzweig, Solomon Goldberg first convinced me that the scope of the project I was pursuing demanded presentation in book form. Michael Morgan read the very first draft of this project back in 2009 and the latest draft in 2013, and he offered copious comments on both. In between, he has contributed immensely through conversations, and through an enthusiasm for the project that has helped me persevere through those doubts that so often arise in academic work. Paul Franks read and commented upon numerous drafts of the manuscript. Conversations and correspondence with Paul have been tremendously helpful for me in clarifying the philosophical stakes of Rosenzweig s night-conversation, and especiall