A new center for Jewish studies has opened at Goethe University in Frankfurt, joining a growing number of Jewish studies programs at universities across Germany.
Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) is often considered one of the most original and innovative modern Jewish thinkers, but he is also one of the most misunderstood. Born into an assimilated family, Rosenzweig set out on a promising academic career. But like other young intellectuals of his time, he found himself in the midst of a spiritual crisis, finding no solace in academic philosophy. In 1913, convinced by his friend Eugen Rosenstock that only belief in Christianity could rescue modern man from the impasse of historicism and provide true orientation in life, he prepared himself for conversion. But although he had decided in favor of Christianity, Rosenzweig chose to walk to the baptismal font as a Jew, and dutifully prepared for his entrance to the Church by attending High Holy Day services in the synagogue. Spiritually, he never left it.
Elliot Wolfson.
Heidegger and Kabbalah: Hidden Gnosis and the Path of Poiēsis. Indiana University Press, 2020. 453 pages. (Paperback $60)
Wolfson’s new book
Heidegger and Kabbalah is arguably the
magnum opus of his long and productive career. It stands as a landmark study in Judaism
and philosophy. In the realm of Jewish philosophy, I dare say it is the most important study on or about Judaism produced in our era. It is also a major contribution to the study of Martin Heidegger and the Humanities more generally. This work contributes to how we read traditions of inquiry to both critique and then reconstruct moral possibilities and excavate metaphysical hazards. This book will join a very narrow canon of major Jewish philosophical works in the twentieth and twenty-first century including Hermann Cohen’s