NaharaimPub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1515/naha-2019-0010
E. Durand
{"title":"Geist der Übersetzung: Franz Rosenzweig on the Redemptive Task of Translation","authors":"E. Durand","doi":"10.1515/naha-2019-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2019-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper examines the relevance of Rosenzweig’s theory of translation to his concept of redemption. Rosenzweig’s statements on the redemptive virtues of translation, in the afterword to his Jehuda Halevi and in “Scripture and Luther,” are well known. However, when considered in connection with the Star of Redemption as well as with the later essays, Rosenzweig’s position appears more complex than what a first reading might suggest, for he seemed to have abandoned his first definition of translation – as an imperfectly redemptive task, nevertheless providing effective understanding between the peoples – to adopt the notion of a true redemption of the tongues, be it at the expense of understanding. In what sense is translation, if at all legitimately, bound to Redemption? The paper argues that the concept of the spirit (Geist) is central to Rosenzweig’s theory of translation, and examines the metamorphoses of this concept from the Star to the later essays. It accounts for the fact that language, in a certain sense, is the true subject of redemption, and allows for new insights into the philosophy of history.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"14 1","pages":"59 - 81"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45541702","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1515/naha-2019-0011
Ghilad H. Shenhav
{"title":"Between Abgrund and Urwirbel: The Story of One Word in the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible Translation","authors":"Ghilad H. Shenhav","doi":"10.1515/naha-2019-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2019-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper closely examines the translation of the Hebrew word תהום – abyss (Genesis 1:2), in two versions of the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible: In the first edition of Die Schrift published 1926 the abyss is translated as “Abgrund”. However, after Rosenzweig’s death, the “Abgrund” is erased by Buber and replaced in later versions (1930/1952/1962) by the rather odd word “Urwirbel.” This paper reflects on the transition from “Abgrund” to “Urwirbel” and demonstrates the profound rootedness of Buber and Rosenzweig in the German philosophical vocabulary of the early twentieth century. It shows how the conversion from “Abgrund” to “Urwirbel” crystalized a moment in German-Jewish thought, a historical meeting point in the depths of the abyss between the German and the Hebrew languages. The encounter was covered by the course of history but deserves to be revisited and reinterpreted.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"14 1","pages":"102 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45791796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1515/naha-2019-0014
Eveline Goodman-Thau
{"title":"Redemption Restored: The Star in the Context of Modernity","authors":"Eveline Goodman-Thau","doi":"10.1515/naha-2019-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2019-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In retrospect of a century, the philosophical and theological concepts of Franz Rosenzweig’s New Thinking, as developed in the Star of Redemption, are in many aspects a milestone in modernity, reflecting the crisis of the modern Jew and Judaism both historically and politically. The notion of redemption serves here in fact as a paradigm for modernity itself, where the individual attempts to position himself in the tension between religion and secularism, tradition and modernity. This contribution analyses Rosenzweig’s “Jewish journey of redemption”, not only from the perspective of Jewish Messianism, but in the context of modern Jewish thought as a cultural critique (Kulturkritik) in Western tradition, in its philosophical, theological, historical and political aspects.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"14 1","pages":"133 - 147"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/naha-2019-0014","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42390377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1515/naha-2019-0015
Yemima Hadad
{"title":"“Ich Habe Nicht Geantwortet”: Hermeneutics of Secrecy, Religious Silence, and Dialogvergessenheit in Martin Buber’s Exchange with Franz Rosenzweig about Halakhah","authors":"Yemima Hadad","doi":"10.1515/naha-2019-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2019-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The exchange between Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig on the status of halakha is a well known, but also frustrating fixture in scholarship. For rather than responding to Rosenzweig’s critique, Buber seems to retreat in silence, claiming to be “unable to speak” about his position on Jewish Law. Scholars have generally tried to explain Buber’s failure to respond on philosophical and biographical grounds. What I propose, by contrast, is to revisit the question of Buber’s silence and secrecy from a hermeneutical standpoint, arguing that Buber engaged in a deliberate strategy of concealment that constituted its own form of response. The hermeneutics of silence discloses a call for religious renewal that follows a state of Dialogvergessenheit, but which cannot be made audible. Neither dialogue nor its remembrance can be commanded. While Buber struggles with his Nichtredenkönnen, he also stands in a tradition of secretive hermeneutics – the Jewish hermeneutics of sod.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"14 1","pages":"103 - 132"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45222710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.1515/naha-2019-0019
M. Zwick
{"title":"Words and Diagrams about Rosenzweig’s Star","authors":"M. Zwick","doi":"10.1515/naha-2019-0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2019-0019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores aspects of Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption from the perspective of systems theory. Mosès, Pollock, and others have noted the systematic character of the Star. While “systematic” does not mean “systems theoretic,” the philosophical theology of the Star encompasses ideas that are salient in systems theory. The Magen David star to which the title refers, and which deeply structures Rosenzweig’s thought, fits the classic definition of “system” – a set of elements (God, World, Human) and relations between the elements (Creation, Revelation, Redemption). The Yes and No of the elements and their reversals illustrate the bridging of element and relation with the third category of “attribute,” a notion also central to the definition of “system.” In the diachronics of “the All,” the relations actualize what is only potential in the elements in their primordial state and thus remedy the incompleteness of these elements, fusing them into an integrated whole. Incompleteness is a major theme of systems theory, which also explicitly examines the relations between wholes and parts and offers a formal framework for expressing such fusions. In this article, the systems character of Parts I & II of the Star is explored through extensive use of diagrams; a systems exploration of Part III is left for future work. Remarkably, given its highly architectonic character, diagrams are absent in Rosenzweig’s book, except for the triangle of elements, the triangle of relations, and the hexadic star, which are presented on the opening page of each part of the book. While structures can be explicated entirely in words, diagrams are a visual medium of communication that supplements words and supports a nonverbal understanding that structures both thought and experience.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"14 1","pages":"33 - 5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43635692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.1515/naha-2018-0100
Anna Pollmann
{"title":"Verdinglichung und Zerstörung. Günther Anders und der Begriff der Geschichte im Jahr 1941","authors":"Anna Pollmann","doi":"10.1515/naha-2018-0100","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2018-0100","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article discusses the transformation of the concept of History as it can be traced in the writings of Günther Anders. Anders is primarily known as a critique of modern technology specifically of the atomic bomb, which made him a mentor for the first anti-nuclear movement in West-Germany in the late 1950s. His historical thinking was therefore mainly perceived in its post-historic and apocalyptic dimensions. A closer look at his earlier writings reveals not only that his questioning of the modern concept of History began long before the “ontological cesura” of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The article discusses two unpublished philosophical manuscripts as well as passages from his Californian diaries, both dating from 1940/41 and focussing the concept of progress. To follow his thoughts from two different angles – historical philosophical inquiry (however fragmented) and the literary form of his diary – gives us insight in his specific methodology of writing coined “Gelegenheitsphilosophie”. This specific form between “journalism and metaphysics” enables Anders to review abstract philosophical concepts on the basis of everyday observation. In the crucial year 1941 Anders reviews progress-thought from the perspective of a Hollywood film studio, raising questions of tradition, authenticity and technological progress in cultural production.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"13 1","pages":"117 - 138"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/naha-2018-0100","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44039495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.1515/naha-2018-0106
Galili Shahar
{"title":"The Creature, the First Question: An Essay","authors":"Galili Shahar","doi":"10.1515/naha-2018-0106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2018-0106","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article deals with the notion of the “Creature” as being displayed in Joseph Wittig’s essay titled Der Weg zur Kreatur. This piece by Wittig (1879–1949), one of the co-founders of the journal Die Kreatur, himself a banished Catholic thinker, an excommunicated theologian, was published in the third volume of the journal in 1929/1930. The major argument to be presented here, following Wittig’s essay, concerns the path (but also the method) into the world of the creature, namely, the way-back, a regression, which depends on counter-movements, suspensions, gestures of recollection and witnessing. This path is based on the potentialities of the “first question” – a demand for the first word, a proper name for the silent, forgotten creature, being invited to encounter. The encounter with the creatures is a method of thinking, a way of being in this world that is based on the possibility of asking rightly the “first question”. For what this question performs is an attention, hearing of, a method of listening. In asking the question of (and for) the creature, language itself turns toward the world of the creation, in a search for a proper name, calling creation to be heard, to belong.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"13 1","pages":"14 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/naha-2018-0106","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44692230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NaharaimPub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.1515/naha-2019-0006
Enrico Rosso
{"title":"Ein „Zusammengehen ohne Zusammenkommen“. Der Entstehungsprozess des intellektuellen Netzwerkes um die Zeitschrift Die Kreatur","authors":"Enrico Rosso","doi":"10.1515/naha-2019-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/naha-2019-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This research article aims to deliver an analytical representation of the intellectual environment of the culture journal Die Kreatur (1926–1930), a religious-dialogical quarterly edited by Martin Buber, Joseph Wittig, and Viktor von Weizsäcker and enlivened by some of the most prominent figures of German-Jewish interwar culture (among others W. Benjamin, H. S. Bergman, E. Rosenstock-Huessy, F. Rosenzweig, E. Simon, and L. Strauss). Building on a recognition of the problematic relationship between the dialogical model claimed in the programmatic foreword of the journal and the group narratives enacted by its key contributors, the study attempts to outline the formation process of the intellectual plexus of the journal and to provide a differentiated analysis of its singular constituents via a sociologically informed framework. The representation of the intellectual network of Die Kreatur in accordance with the model of a “circle of circles” provides insight into the elusive dialectic of interaction and divergence that determines the relations between the main actors of the journal and thus contributes to unfold the interplay of biographical intersections and conceptual synergies, as well as incongruities, frictions, and contradictory instances that determines its editorial and philosophical profile.","PeriodicalId":40309,"journal":{"name":"Naharaim","volume":"13 1","pages":"73 - 97"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/naha-2019-0006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47870994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}