Nine Talmudic Readings

Emmanuel Levinas, Annette Aronowicz

Description

Nine rich and masterful readings of the Talmud by the French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas translate Jewish thought into the language of modern times. Between 1963 and 1975, Levinas delivered these commentaries at the annual Talmudic colloquia of a group of French Jewish intellectuals in Paris. In this collection, Levinas applies a hermeneutic that simultaneously allows the classic Jewish texts to shed light on contemporary problems and lets modern problems illuminate the texts. Besides being quintessential illustrations of the art of reading, the essays express the deeply ethical vision of the human condition that makes Levinas one of the most important thinkers of our time.

Levinas's Talmudic Readings: Thirty Years Later / Annette Aronowicz

Acknowledgments

Translator's Introduction / Annette Aronowicz

Four Talmudic Readings

Introduction

Toward the Other

The Temptation of Temptation

Promised Land or Permitted Land

"As Old as the World?"

From the Sacred to the Holy: Five New Talmudic Readings

Preface

Judaism and Revolution

The Youth of Israel

Desacralization and Disenchantment

And God Created Woman

Damages Due to Fire

Glossary

Sujets

• Religión
• Emmanuel Lévinas
• Religious text
• MINUIT
• Philosophy
• Indiana University Press
• IUP
• Continental philosophy
• Human condition
• Jewish philosophy
• Hermeneutics
• Rabbinic literature
• Judaism
• Commentary
• Temptation
• Promised Land
• Nouvelles
• Levinas
• Emmanuel Levinas
• Institut universitaire professionnalisé
• Translation
• Lecture
• Talmud

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 16 mai 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253040503
• Langue: English

Extrait

NINE TALMUDIC READINGS
NINE TALMUDIC READINGS

EMMANUEL
LEVINAS
Translated with an introduction by
ANNETTE ARONOWICZ
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
1990 and 2019 by Indiana University Press
The readings included in this work were originally published in French as Quatre lectures talmudiques , 1968 by Les ditions de Minuit, and Du sacr au saint: cinq nouvelles lectures talmudiques , 1977 by Les ditions de Minuit.
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 paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Levinas, Emmanuel, author. Aronowicz, Annette, 1952- translator, writer of added introduction. Container of (work): Levinas, Emmanuel. Quatre lectures talmudiques. English Container of (work): Levinas, Emmanuel. Du sacre au saint. English.
Title: Nine Talmudic readings / Emmanuel Levinas ; translated and with an introduction by Annette Aronowicz.
Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, [2019] Translations of: Quatre lectures talmudiques; Du sacre au saint. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019012434 (print) LCCN 2019012988 (ebook) ISBN 9780253040527 (ebook) ISBN 9780253333797 (hardback : alk. paper) ISBN 9780253040497 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects:LCSH: Talmud-Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Classification: LCC BM504.2 (ebook) LCC BM504.2 .L4413 2019 (print) DDC 296.1/206-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019012434
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CONTENTS
A Few Words on the New Edition
New Introduction-Levinas s Talmudic Readings: Thirty Years Later / Annette Aronowicz
Acknowledgments
Translator s Introduction / Annette Aronowicz
FOUR TALMUDIC READINGS
Introduction
Toward the Other
The Temptation of Temptation
Promised Land or Permitted Land
As Old as the World?
FROM THE SACRED TO THE HOLY: FIVE NEW TALMUDIC READINGS
Preface
Judaism and Revolution
The Youth of Israel
Desacralization and Disenchantment
And God Created Woman
Damages Due to Fire
Glossary
A FEW WORDS ON THE NEW EDITION
THIS REVISED EDITION CONTAINS A new introduction, a glossary, and some corrections and additions to the original version. The new introduction reflects on some of the reactions Levinas s talmudic readings have evoked in the last thirty years. The glossary briefly identifies regular attendants or participants in the Colloquia of French-Speaking Jewish intellectuals whom Levinas mentions within these nine readings, giving current readers at least an idea of the audience Levinas was addressing or had in mind. The corrections are mainly limited to typos, missing fragments unintentionally left out, and a few misleading Hebrew transliterations. As to additions, this volume now includes bibliographical information for those texts of Levinas, untranslated in 1990, now available in English. Along the same lines, to make it easier for the reader to locate a quotation or paraphrase in Levinas s writings outside these nine readings, I often substituted the new English translation for the one in my original introduction. In some cases, however, either for reasons of interpretation or aesthetics, I have left my original translation in place. I have also added footnotes to the ones already in the earlier version, in an attempt to clarify a reference that Levinas makes. For the rest, the 1990 translation and introduction have remained the same. Translation is an unending process, and there are always other and conceivably better ways to convey the meaning. When upon reviewing it I found my original translation accurate, I did not change it. In a very few places, I could not resist changing a word, mainly for matters of consistency or possible ambiguity. These instances are rare. As to the translator s introduction, of course, much has changed since 1990, including the author. But many people coming to Levinas for the first time might profit from the historical background it provides, and from the reflections on Levinas s style of interpretation. The new introduction is meant to complement rather than replace, bringing readers into some of the current controversies his work has stirred.
Annette Aronowicz
NEW INTRODUCTION
Levinas s Talmudic Readings: Thirty Years Later
ANNETTE ARONOWICZ
WHEN NINE TALMUDIC READINGS APPEARED in 1990, Emmanuel Levinas was largely unknown to American audiences, whether academic or general. None of his Jewish writings had been published in the United States, and his major philosophical writings, although available in English, remained the province of relatively small academic circles. 1 It is safe to say that in the intervening years this situation has changed. In his 2002 introduction to the Cambridge Companion to Levinas , the philosopher Simon Critchley notes, There is now a veritable flood of work on Levinas in a huge range of languages, and his work has been well translated into English. 2 Since 2002, this flood has not receded. If one searches under Emmanuel Levinas in the Harvard University library catalog, for instance, as of September 2017, the results yield over 18,000 titles. Even limiting the search to what has been published since 2010 leads to over 7,000 entries. This does not include the multiple colloquia, courses, and seminars devoted to Levinas in many countries.
Since no one person can hope to give a comprehensive overview of this astonishing reaction, I will limit myself to a single current particularly relevant to the Jewish writings. Hitherto considered peripheral or secondary to Levinas s philosophical works, the Jewish writings are increasingly taken into account for their philosophical significance. The scholars who do so are following Levinas himself, who from the first of his talmudic commentaries indicated that the meaning to be found in these rabbinic exchanges was not only transposable into a philosophical language but refers to philosophical problems. 3 This has led to no greater consensus than before, however, as to how the Jewish writings and the philosophical writings relate to each other. 4 Some scholars claim that the Jewish writings are the source of the philosophical writings. 5 Others claim that, on the contrary, Western philosophy is the lens through which Levinas reads Jewish texts. 6 Another sees a complex crisscrossing between the two, in which it is impossible to police the borders. 7 In all these cases, the Jewish writings now provide crucial grist for the philosophical mill.
Further proof of the Jewish writings increased philosophical recognition is their taken-for-granted insertion into philosophical discussion. To give just one prominent example, Jacques Derrida in his farewell address and in his commemorative lecture to Levinas cites Levinas s talmudic readings abundantly, intertwining them with the philosophic works, without further ado. 8 The Jewish writings are, of course, particularly pertinent to Derrida s concern in those essays, the relation of ethics to politics. In the talmudic readings, as well as in his other essays on Jewish themes, Levinas frequently reflects on Jewish citizenship in the modern State, and the state of Israel, among other matters. Yet the philosophical import of the Jewish writings cannot be limited to clarifying Levinas s political philosophy. A lesson like The Temptation of Temptation, in this volume, goes straight for the notion of subjectivity at the heart of Levinas s ethics and shows the relation of responsibility to cognition in a particularly suggestive way. Every one of the lessons, in fact, whether in this volume or in the others now available, explores his central ethical insight-the unchosen responsibility that defines us as subjects-as it relates to myriad issues-language, forgiveness, ritual, war, education, economics, gender relations, to list just a few. As is evident to anyone familiar with Levinas s texts, the latter s philosophy is dominated by one thought, but [Levinas] seeks to think one thing under an often bewildering variety of aspects, as Critchley puts it. 9 The Jewish writings, no less than the philosophical writings, reveal this diversity in unity.
This welcome recognition should not make us forget that the Jewish writings have a purpose different from the philosophical writings. The talmudic readings in particular were a call to Jews primarily or exclusively educated on Western sources to return to the study of their own classical texts, most particularly the Talmud. The study of these texts would enable the rediscovery of a specifically Jewish consciousness, in a community devastated by the Shoa and well on its way to assimilation. From one perspective, Levinas seems to be following the French sociologist mile Durkheim here. As the latter pointed out, a community builds and renews itself through its ritual activity, which is not only a way of strengthening feelings of membership in the group, but also a way of instilling the particular moral conscience that gives the group its distinctive identity. 10 Levinas emphasizes the crucial role of group ritual in