Moishe Postone and the Essay as Form

Abstract

W hen many of us here today were talking about Moishe—this past spring—Marty Jay and Cathy Gallagher were in New York visiting and we were having just that discussion among ourselves when I asked Cathy what had made Moishe so lovable. She had already thought it over, I am sure, because a moment later, to know what she had said, I had to think back onwhat I had just heard, “Well, he was so present.”Cathy speaks very quickly. But, it is true, I decided, catching up with her after another moment. Moishe was right there. One thinks of the urgent, parsing, orderliness of mind; of an innately deliberative politeness, which he somehow joinedwith a refusal hands-downof anymisunderstanding; and one thinks, especially, of the focused clarity of his voice, as if he might have been more the son of the cantor than of the rabbi. The first time I heard Moishe give a talk, when I was by no means young, was also the very first time I understood an hour-long lecture fromfirst to last syllable andwas able to conclude, as well, that having heard it might have done me some good. When I spoke about the lecture afterward with Moishe, appreciatively, and to introduce myself, he somehow gave me to understand that the achievement had been mine entirely. Butwhat Imost sensed in the presence ofMoishe,whatwemust all have recognized in him, consciously or not, was some part of fleeing humanity that, long before Moishe arrived here in the United States from Canada, had already covered many more miles than that, and not just in this direction, and not just as one person fleeing. One listened to Moishe’s exacting diction, closely, wondering what language was actually being spoken. I would not have told him so—and I hesitate to say it now—but I considered him a relative at the remove of some quantum considerably greater than six million. Moishe Postone’s commitment was to a monotheism of