"Love" is a term, which serves many functions; so much so that in many instances its usage lacks content. "Love" is a shout heard externally, a banner bandied about, which many people encircle and seek, but whichfew understand. Newspaper headlines continually project "unfounded hate" but never "unfounded love"? What of this love with its meaningful essence and character? And what of those persons who live such a love? On this, we hear nothing. And we may assume that the condition will not change so long as the slogan of love is presented as artificial jargon, rather then as as internal and essential value; or as a cosmetic and habitual motto, rather than as a fulfilling and multi-significant experience.

Thes research paper concerns itself with the concept "love" as it relates to humanity according to the following criteria:

(a its source, (b its character, and finally (c the way to embgody and express it, all according to the perception of Maimonides, may his name be remembered in Righteousness and Blessing. In accordance with the dictum in the Talmud saying, "Torah learning is greater when it leads to action, "let it be His Will that this treatment of the concept will be a steppingstone to achieve love in our thought, speech and actions.

A. THE SOURCE OF LOVE

Chapters 51 and 52 of Section 3 of Maimonides` THE GUIDE TO THE PERPLEXED discuss knowing the Almighty as the source from which the love of G-d, grows. We learn that the source of love is knowing G-d, and to acheeve it one must cling to the spiritual concept that is liarned in the comment, "Didn`t I explain to you that this is the intellect that abounds in us from the Holy One; it is the attachment" which which exists between us and Him? We understand the source of love as the concentration of man`s thought in G-d, or the knowledge of G-d.

Maimonides joins the religious ideal of attaining G-d as the source of love with the philosophic ideal of  a life of reflection. True, the purpose of man is reflection, but the purpose of reflection reflects the source of love, the knowledge of G-d. However the fundamental questions are asked: What is love`s explanatin, and what is the meaning of the knowledge of G-d? And how can man, in general, arrive at the source of this knowledge as a prelude to love?

                        Regarding these questions, it is worthwhile consedering the central chapter of the system of descriptions, THE GUIDE, Section 1, Chapter 54. There, Maimonides relies on Moses, Our Rabbi, and says that he requested two wishes from the Almighty: one, "that He should show him His strength and His truth," that is, that G-d should reveal His might before him; and two, that G-d "should describe Himself to him." On these requests G-d replied to Moses that His might is incomprehensible, and His descriptions are His acts. It is impossible, then, to know G-d from the aspect of His might, although it is possible to know Him from the aspect of His acts. The descriptions of G-d which embody Him to us are discriptions of actions. Thus, all the descriptions of which the Almighty notified Moses were descriptive of actions: merceful, gracious, forbearing. The ways in which Moses requested their knowledge and by which he was notified of them were through awareness of His acts, may His name be blesed. The Sages called these acts "attributes" naming them collectively "The Thirteen Attributes." (XXXIV:6-7)

Knowing G-d as the source of love is even called by the name "the pure thought." This is learned from the words of Maimonides in THE GUIDE, Section, Chapter 21, "That the pure thought, according to it will be love; it is the essential knowledge of G-d Himself." This direct attachment of love to knowledge teaches that the essence of the idea love did not, according to Maimonides, include the psychological eddect and the emotional experience. The source of the love of G-d is practical, thoughtful and not emotional. (See GUIDE,III:54 "`And you will love your G-d with all your heart` means with all of the strength of your heart.")  Essentially, Maimonides sought to free the love of G-d from its emotional content and to turn it into a pure achievement. This approach is expressed at the end of THE GUIDE.  

B. THE NATURE OF LOVE

The nature of love is purposeful. This is expressed in the fifth chapter o Maimonides` EIGHT CHAPTERS: Man must activate all the strengths of his soul to know... and will place before him at all times one purpose, and it is the attaining of G-d, may He be blessed, according to the ablility of the person to know Him. And he will offer all his acts, movements, strengths and whatever else he has to arrive at this purpose, such that none of his acts will be vain acts, meaning an act that will not lead to this purpose.

Love bears the purposeful nature of similarity to G-d and walking in His path. This assumes the form of love of attainment whose essence is attachment to the love of G-d. Maimonides set forth the decree of Jeremiah, XIX:22-3

Do not praise the wise man for his wisdom and the strong for his strengtyh and the wealthy for understanding and knowing Me that I am The Almighty  who does kindness, justice and generosity on earth, in which I delighted in G-d`s address.

Jeremiah does not stop with the words "understanding and knowing Me," and this that did not suffice him for the verse to expain, is that their attacnment alone, may He be blessed, is that which venerates perfection.

The nature of love is also ethical; meaning that attainment of the knowledge of G-d is, in effect, awareness of ethical G-dly characteristics. And furthermore, the purposeful nature, which is in love, is an ethica purpose of the life of man in general. It is knowledge, the knowledge of G-d, though the purpose of this knowledge itself is ethical. Rational perfection os a characteristic of the love of man for G-d, and ethical perfection is a characteristic of the love of G-d for man.

Also, we discover an entirely new picture of Maimonides` thought on man and the nature of man`s love of G-d: Man does not trek towards the love of G-d in a straight line, but in a circular line. The way is that of ethics and knowing G-d, though the path does not end at this point. It returns and is overturned: From knowing G-d there develops a return to the ethical attributes, and the ethical nature of the love of G-d is in the awareness of the G-dly attributed. This means that attaining G-d is essentially attaining His works. Maimonides continues, (GUIDE,III:24) "It is not appropriate to praise only for the attainment of the knowlidge of His ways and His descriptions." His acts being synonymous with His descriptions, we may therefore deduce that we must seek to know His acts in order to perform them. Again, the intention is to replicate the thirteen attributes in order that we may walk in their ways.

But, how is it possible that man will walk in the path of The Almighty? That is, how can man replicate G-d and imitate His deeds? How can we understand this characteristic of love, which is the very fruit of love? To resolve these questions, we must fundamentally distinguish between act and effect. In man, the act results from the spiritual effect, from some creation or quality within the soul, whereas the acts of G-d do not result from a spiritual characteristic or from any essence.

Maimonides stresses this in his discourse on the descriptions of the acts in general saying, (GUIDE, I: 54) "This matter is not one of attributes, but of deeds similar to the acts which come to us from the attributes." That is, the acts of G-d  are similar to ours, but there is no comparison in the causes inducing the actions. The acts of G-d do not result from any effect or spiritual characteristic, but they are as if they result from effects. The appellations "graciousness" and "mercy" and "slow to anger" are not understook as G-d loves or pities (or even hates). The understanding is only that the acts resulting from G-d result as if  from love, mercy or hate. Now the term replication is understood: This characteristic of love os the walking in the path of G-d, the imitation of His acts. There os no replication from the aspect of effects or spiritual charactersitics. The replication is not in the spiritual realm, but in deeds.

To summarize, the nature of love is intellectual rationalism, an act approaching truth, which is knowledge of G-d; the nature of love is purposedul and reflective, knowing G-d so that we may walk in His ways; and at a certain level, love bears an ethical character.

C. THE WAY TO EMBODY AND EXPRESS  LOVE

Theapex of process-reflective devotion is nothing other than reflective exertion toward the awareness o G-d. Reflective awareness is a processs of absorbing a reflective abundance from G-d by means of the active intelligence. This turns the human intelligence into a bridge between G-d and man. This bridge is dependent on man alone, in his intelligence and in his concentration of his thought upon The Almighty. Therefore, in the strengthening of his intellect, man will come to the love of G-d.

This reflection, however, is not only the theoretical, philosophical intelligence; it is also  bound to the internal emotion of man. Intelligence, according to Maimonides, (GUIDE,III:51) is not only rationalistic speculation; it includes the sphere of feelings and emotions.

At a certain plateau love no longer remains in anything other than the beloved, and this is termed by Maimonides (Ibid) with the appellation "desire." This love is already planted in the material of the desire in a way that perfects it, leading us to conclude that the true belief is the religion of love.

Man has a purpose, and it is the attainment of G-d. Man will attain G-d through his entire deeds. Moral and ethical conducts serve as a preparation and as a means for this purpose. Man will not arrive at the supreme purpose if he will not control his morality. If he will not restrain his desires, if he will not internally discipline himself, if he will not improve his understanding and will not strengthen his will, he will not arrive at the supreme ethical stratum.

In the YAD HAHAZAKAH, Maimonides explains, "The revered and fearful G-d commands to love and fear Him, as it is written, `and love your G-d, ` and it is also writtten, `The Lord your G-d you will fear. `" How is it possible to both love and fear Him? It is possible at the time when man will observe His acts and His marvelous creations and see in them His wisdom, which has no measure and no end. Maimonides states further, in the MISHNEA TORAH, (Book I, p.36) "The servant from love studies Torah and follows the Commandments and walks in the ways of the wise not cecause of something in the world, and not because he will otherwise see evil, and not in order to inherit good; but he does the truth because it is truth and resultantly ends favorably..." Then, man will love G-d with a great love, overflowing and mighty, such that his soul will be linked to the love of G-d, G-d as a unity, with all his deeds in the name of Heaven for the sake of the attainment of G-d and performance of the Commandments for their sake alone.

CONCLUSION

According to current and classical thought thought, love is an essential need of each and every indinidual, although the nature and purpose of love is sometimes misconstrued. The essential love is the love of G-d, and the way to achiece it is through the intellect. The ultimate effect o this process is the attainment of G-d and the doing of His Commandments. In closing, we cite the "blessing of love" (Recited in the morning prayer service before the SHMA) which, in for man and man`s love for G-d.

LOVE OF THE WORLD, OUR LOVE, OUR LORD, OUR G-D, YOU HAVE BESTOWED EXCEEDINGLY ABUNDANT COMPASSION ON US. OUR FATHER, OUR KING, IN YOUR GREAT NAME AND FOR THE SAKE OF OUR FATHERS WHO TRUSTED IN YOU, WHO TAUGHT THEM THE LAWS OF LIFE TO DO YOUR WILL WHOLEHEARTEDLY, THUS WILL YOU FAVOR AND TEACH US. OUR FATHER, THE MERCIFUL FATHER, HAVE COMPASSION ON US AND PLACE IN OUR HEARTS UNDERSTANDING, TO KNOW AND TO REASON, TO HEAR, TO LEARN AND TO TEACH, TO RUARD AND TO PERFORM, AND TO DO ALL WHICH YOUR TORAH TEACHES US WITH LOVE. ILLUMINATE OUR EYES WITH YOUR LAW, AND ATTACH OUR HEARTS UNTO YOUR COMMANDMENTS. UNITE OUR HEARTS TO LOVE AND TO FEAR YOUR NAME S THAT WE SHALL NEITHER SHAME NOR REPROACH NOR WAVER, FOREVER. FOR IN YOUR HOLY, FRAND, MIGHTY AND REVERED NAME, WE  TRUSTED. WE SHALL REFOICE AND FEAST IN YOUR SALVATION. IN YOUR MERCY, G-D, OUR FATHER, AND YOUR MANY KINDNESSES, SO NOT ABANDON US EVER. BRING US  SPEEDILY BLESSING AND PEACE...FOR YOU ACT WITH SALVATION AND CHOSE US FROM AMONG ALL PEOPLES, AND BROUGHT US TOGETHER, OUR KING, TO YOUR GREAT NAME, ALWAYS INTRUTH WITH LOVE, TO THANK YOU AND TO PROFESS YOUR UNITY WITH LOVE, AND TO LOVE YOUR NAME. BLESSED BE THOU.OUR LORD, WHO CHOOSES HIS PEOPLE ISRAEL WITH LOVE.

* המאמר מבוסס על סמינר בנושא: ,Medieval Jewish Philosophy  שבו השתתף המחבר במסגרת לימודי הדוקטור בפילוסופיה אקזיסטנציאליסטית, בשנת 1992 ב- Columbia University NY.  עבודת הדוקטור של המחבר חקרה את הגותו של פרנץ רוזנצווייג, שספרו ניצחון החיים את המוות שיצא לאור בשנת 1994, מבוסס על פרי מחקרו.

דף הבית

The author describes the religious, existential philosophy of Rosenzweig in the context of this historical background and its place I "The New Thinking”, the philosophy which followed Hegel and linked man to experiential reality rather than enclosing him in the world of concepts.

The latter vision of man was Hegel’s synthesis of 2000 years of thought. Rosinweed utilized Hegel’s systematic method but searched for a philosophy of the real world to replace Hegel’s  "worldly spirit”.  Blending intellect and revelation, Rosenzweig`s man is free and responsible when God, man and the world meet.

Mea`s freedom however, is limited. Lacking knowledge and purpose and fearing death, man must also think of God, and in that act is able to observe and indeed, create reality in the present. The love of God conquers death and liberates man from the "you" in favor of the "we". Man has purpose.

 

The unique framework of Franz Rosenzweig

The philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig is one of the most interesting and surprising innovations of modern thought, both general and Jewish. There exists a bacground of distinguished modern Jewish philosophers from Moses Mendelssohn, the first philosopher of modem thought who systematically defined the essence of Judaism, to Hermann Cohen and Martin Buber. However, Rosenzweig was the first to inject existential philosophy into Jewish thought and give it direction, both theologically Jewish and original.

Rosenzweig coined a terminological system whose terms were taken from Jewish usage. He provided its own guidelines and created a unique philosophical weave containing an interpretation of the struggle of Judaism with the other monotheistic religions.

Rosenzweig emphasizes a unique and orderly conception of life. In his epistle "On Education," he wrote: "The Judaism to which I refer is not `literary` and is not grasped by the writing or reading of books. Even - forgive me all modern thinkers - it is not to be `experienced` or `cultivated`. One may only live it. And not even this – one is simply a Jew, and nothing more" (his Life 159).The Star of Redemption, Rosenzweig`s masterpiece, is written in a remarkable, ordered, dialectical singularity. In The Star of Redemption, Rosenzweig made one of the few attempts to formulate methodically religious existential philosophy (MiMytos 262-273), This attempt makes the book unconventional, an exceptional work among the philosophical works of our time.

Rpsemzweog. Cpmtrary tp the great classical philosopher, stresses the lack of identity between thought and reality. Instead, the book is based on three elements - God, the world and man - which preface all logical action and may be conceived only by means of faith The Star of Redemption also strays from the accepted line in the existential philosophy of Kierkegaard and Sarte, in that Rosenzweig attempts to prepare a philosophical method par excellence.

 

Rosenzweig`s life and personality also uniquely reflect his philosophy of life: "Man thinks that he philosophizes, but in actuality he writes his autobiography ("From Revelation" 162). Although raised in an assimilated environment, educated at the knees of the classical German idealism and philosophy of the Enlightenment so distant from that of religious belief, he suddenly tumed sharply to faith. Author of the philosophical treatise Hegel and the State, Rosinzweig subsequently became the author of the theological book  The Star of Redemption and translator of Hebrew poetry of th Middle Ages and the Beble to German. He Stood at the threshold of converting to Christianity and retured to Judaism to cecome one of its most profound thinkers. Intellectually acute, probing and exhilaratin, his essays frequently contained irony and humor though written furing the last eight years of his life while he was critically ifl and in agony, paralyzed throughout his body and unable to speak (His Life).

 

Notwithstandig the uniqueness of the man and his method, Rosenzweig`s philosophy is a not a singular phenomenon, but is a total spiritual process which characterizes post-Hegelian philosophy. This process places in the center of thought not understanding or an abstract method but rather existential man, real, vital man ,with all his existential problems, emotion and agonies of soul.

The philosophic path leading to Hegel

In the approximately two hundred years which preceded Hegel,  a direction in philosophical thought had commenced and developed which led inexorably t Hegelian thought. Among the significant philosophers of this developmental period was Francis Bacon  (1561-1626), the father of English empiricism, who maintained that the source of undersanding o knowledge is the experience we acquire by means of our senses.  Bacon developed the scientific method, which was adopted and adapted by, among others, political philosophirs defferent one from the other as Thomas Hobbes  (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1701).

 

Man`s dependence on his perception developed from a scientificmethod to a philosophical concept. George Berkeley (1685-1753) set forth the rule: "to be" is to "be perceived" in the mind of man. He further asserted that the one thing which exists for certain is Spirirual reality, thought, the result at which the senses arrive. The skepticism of Berkeley was buttressed by David Hume (1711-1771), who denied the possibility to understand via our intellect any truth of reality. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) neither accepted the skepticism of Hume nor the earlier empiricism, and he suggested a synthesis which transferred the center of gravity from the obfect to the "I." We lmpw. C;ao,ed Kant. By means of our senses as shaped by our ntellect and not by the world surrounding us.



Kant was not the only philosopher who nourished the "I". René Descartes (1596-1650) based consciousness on one fundamental element "Cogito ergo Sum." Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz`s (1646-1716) theory of monadology strengthened the "I" of Descartes, and the monism and natural determinism of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) found in the "I" total unity of spirit and the entirely natural.

Thus, the broad spectrum of philosophical doctrines in the approximately two hundred years which preceded Hegel Began to emphasize deliberation on man's place in the world. Following Hegel, there occurred significant and distinctive movement in philosophical thought, one which properly, as described by Rosinzweig, could be called "the new thinking."

 The immense significance of  "the new thinking" will become apparent following a brief review of the theories and teachings of Hegel.

 Hegelian theory and reaction to it as background to "The New Thinking"

 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) contributed to philosophy in the two following ways:

  1. He established the history of philosophy as a central authority and integral part of philosophical education. The dialectic observes things in motion, flowing, and knows that not everything, which was true yesterday, will be true also tomorrow. By its nature, the dialectic is likely to accustom man to greater tolerance.

 2. He made the initial determination that the previous various philosophical methods are expressed in terms of the development of cognition towards one idealistic philosophy, which strives towards an absolute and exclusive truth, that is, to the "worldly spirit" – the divine orientation which aspires to bring the human world to complete fulfillment of spiritual freedom. Hegel saw in the history of philosophy a steady march towards "absolute knowledge". Philosophy was not only a matter of understanding history but rather was the force and the best means to direct the course of history ("die absalute Macht" ), to make the cognitive path bring about events. However, the striving of Hegel towards one total and complete philosophy, the one philosophy, which strived for absolute truth, conflicted with the many philosophical doctrines of earlier philosophers.

 Hegel solved this conflict with his dialectic. Philosophical conceptions based on theses, that is, On assumptions of only partial perception of verity of the concept. Become in the course of thought anti-theses. These anti-theses are also partial in their perception of the verity of the concept, however their fusion engenders mutual completion, synthesis, realization of one philosophical truth ("die Tatalitӓt"). In other words, one must recognize any philosophy only via its conflict with other philosophies, but one must recognize also its veritable elements.

 Philosophy absorbs within it the fruits of the spirit of the earlier period, which opposes it, and that spirit completes and improves it and creates the Hegelian synthesis.

 "That philosophy which is the last chronologically embodies the result of all the previous philosophies, and therefore it must contain the principles of all of them; thus, as philosophy, it is the most advanced, fertile and explicit" (Enzyklopӓdie, sec, 13, 47).Each philosopher, then, represents a specific stage of partial truth on the way to the entirety.

 A similar idea was recently proposed by Natan Rotenstreich, born in 1914, approximately 150 years after Hegel ( Al Hakiyum 25-28). According to Rotenstreich, every person must feel himself a necessary link in the development of custom, which is the complex of connections, which are transferred in each and every generation. The consciousness senses that one is a participant in an enterprise of giants that will never be completed. The I-myself is turned, then, by one's modest original contribution to a part of some infinite thing. Man is not the initiator of processes; he knows that the world does not begin with him. Similarly, he cannot put a to the enterprise with which he is associated, and he is, therefore, a part of it forever. Rotenstreich emphasizes the personal, subjective element, but there is no moment of philosophy perfecting itself, as there is according to Hegel.

Rosenzeig utilized the systematic and methodical concept of Hegel, perceiving him as "the great inheritor of two thousand years of the history o philosophy" (Star 61), but did not conclude therefore that Hegel was the sole possessor of philosophical truth or that his predecessors propounded false conceptions. Hegel's dialectic resolution was not a conclusion after which no advancement of thought, which opposes the essence of his dialectic vision, could be drawn. Philosophical weaponry of a fresh and innovative type was necessary to resolve philosophical problems as they continued to arise.

 This yearning for a new type of philosophical thinking that will function in the real world perceived the existence of man as he is rather than in terms of Hegel's "worldly spirit." This longing was expressed, for example, in Nietzsche's "changing the scale of all values" and in the materialistic philosophical thought of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804-1872).

 Not only was Hegel's metaphysics being critically analyzed, his "philosophy of nature" also was revealed as being false. His attempts to perceive the phenomena of nature from abstract assumptions and not from experimental science was mocked by expert researchers such as Carl Friedrich Gauss in his research on geometry and Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz in his work on the consciousness (Lectures).

 Hegel observed the world from the aspect of the absolute spirit, the "perfect" consciousness of abstract thought and did not consider the existence of real man as he is, living in the concrete world of his direct experiences and his real problems.  Hegel perceived the world as consolidated and united, as an infinite ideal, forever unattainable by science, a world which does not bring man to concrete actuality at the depths of his soul.

 Hegel enclosed man in a world of abstract concepts, seeing man as a world in miniature, which loses its connection with the true and vital reality and is forever incapable of finding it. Man became, instead, a part of the method, a part of a speculative, magical, worldly system - the world and man are "one flesh" - united and linked one with the other. Consciousness does not bring one to true and real cognition, rather it results from the elemental and specific experience, maintained Hegel's opponents.

 Contrary to Hegel's opinion, Hegelian thought was not complete. Bacon, who two hundred years earlier distrusted thought in and of itself and favored knowledge based on phenomena of nature and experiment, and Hans Vaihinger, who asserted two generations after Hegel that thought is unable to recognize the "absolute truth, " were only two of many philosophers who disputed Hegel's claim. There were also other doctrines, which were inconsistent with Hegelians thought. Among these doctrines are phenomenology, founded by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), which currently dominates in Germany and France. Phenomenology seeks to light the true position of man's consciousness by spiritual or external data ("phenomena") without any ontological- a priori determination.

Another dissident vis -á - visa Hegelian thought is Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), considered one of the fathers of the neo -Kantian "Marburg School."  Cohen asserts that the "logic of the inception" ("Logik des Ursprungs") or transcendental ontology seeks the "true reality" or the final essence in thought, meaning that examination of the spiritual a priori creation, exposure of the data from the beginning as an infinite process, is that which determines the programmatic status of the consciousness of man. Cohen seeks to realize society organized on the principles of ethics and the safeguarding of man's honor.

 The philosophers who followed Hegel were dissatisfied with idealistic philosophy; they did not agree with Hegel that consciousness does not bring one to true and real cognition and began to develop philosophic thought that would not be restricted to the abstract and traditional method of Hegel. They sought, furthermore, to use philosophy to find resolutions to the problems bothering real people in the concrete world.

 "The essential tendency of philosophic activity must bring the philosopher to man ...the special symbol of recognition of man turns his independent essence to a unique personality which exists for itself..." (Principles of the Philosophy 60). In his book The Essence of Christianity ( Das Wesen Der Christentums), Feuerbach maintains that the existential reality in the life of man is in his belief in human nature and in good deeds in this world. Marxian and Nietzschian thought similarly conflicted with that of Hegel on the essential point set forth by Feuerbach. 

The difference, then, between Hegel and those who opposed his thought is in the view of the relationship of the man-philosopher and philosophy, Hegel considered each philosopher as an instrument of philosophy, a representative of partial truth at a certain stage of the development of philosophy, That idea about which the philosopher thinks becomes an idea, external to the philosopher, abstract and "perfect, " on which the philosopher speculates and is not a part of him.

 Form the perspective of his opponents, not only was there a new concept of philosophy; there was also a new brand of philosopher. Man is now the determining factor; he is no longer enclosed in a world of concepts, but is tied to vital. Concrete and direct, experiential reality. Man has, in the words of Rosenzweig, a "world view," he "takes a position " (Star 143).  He is not an instrument of philosophy; rather philosophy is an instrument of the philosopher, of man. "The philosopher lowers himself humbly to his experimental. Existing "I," and then his doctrine will be more veritable, concrete and closer to the truth" (Dialogical Philosophy 173).

Another conflict with Hegelian thought was led by the non-rationalists, those philosophers who opposed a philosophy in which man acts according to the intellect alone, leaving no place for the demands of the heart and feeling. Søren Kierdegaard  (1813-1855) claimed, for example, that Hegel changed religion to an absolute, conceptual-cognitive idealistic philosophy, which prevents man from attaining the possibility of direct connection with God. He declared that "truth is subjective and that the principal element in philosophy is `the subjective philosopher`" (post-Scriptum, sec. 2).

 Hegelian thought monistic idealism, which solves everything by one principle, the idea  the "spirit"  - prevented man from making the connection of faith. The world is, Hegel claimed, only an idea of God without a theistic undertone; rather, it is pantheistic, since things are not created by the idea: they are the idea itself. Nature, science and the arts are all accomplishments of consciousness individual man also is the fulfillment of consciousness, and there is only the conscious, so the private "I" has no place in this method. The "I" is similar, as in the theory of Spinoza, to a "light wave rolling along the waves of the ocean." The object ("substantia") according to Spinoza is the spirit according to Hegel, each engulfing everything within it. Thus, the solitary "I" cannot face God, as one who stands before God whether in prayer or as sinner or as a thinker.

The basic assumption of belief is that man can stand and present his essence before God, that God can speak with him and he can speak with God, or in the words of the German historian, Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886): "Here every age is really immediate to God" (Star 225). Ranke depicts the events of the past "as they were when they occurred." That is, the events are depicted b means of the revelation of God in the metaphysical ideal image, which gave significance to the occurrences, and not by means of the intellect ("The Significance").

 In refuting Hegel, the non-rationalist Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854) claimed that in rationalistic systems we can attain only knowledge of the possible and general laws knowledge of the real is always individualistic, it requires an act of the will which results from a personal need which can not be supplied by possibilities or general laws. Against the "negative" rationalistic philosophy Schelling placed a "positive philosophy," based on faith and will, which philosophy created the powerful and innovative basis for existential, religious philosophy, from which philosophy Franz Rosenzweig was influenced greatly.

 Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) raised the "will" above "consciousness" ("ratio") (The World). Schopenhauer claimed that the will resembles a thing which itself is outside our ken, beyond the ability of our consciousness to understand; the will is the singular reality in us and in the entire world. Man's consciousness serves the power of blind will, which lacks purpose and proof and will never be satisfied (compare Star 47, 49 and 57). Nietzsche holds that only the will to govern and be powerful exists in all beings. Will is the active element in natural and human phenomena; our mental consciousness distorts and opposes life, and science is of value but is not veritable.

 Among other non-rationalists who contested Hegel's monastic idealism were Theodor Lessing (1872-1933) and Solomon Ludwig Steinheim (1789-1866). Lessing argued that truth is not revealed by consciousness, that it is hidden from consciousness and found among the silent forces, which activate and direct the consciousness in its action (Einmal). Steinheim (1789-1866) asserted that one does not reach religious truth (creation of the world, revelation) by mental deliberation since this truth is subject to revelation only. He "denies speculative philosophy because of its rationalistic nature and makes faith itself a type of consciousness, not identifying it with the rationalistic consciousness" (Al Hakiyum2: 168).   

 Philosophy`s two separate paths

Rosenzweig`s thought has a special place among the thinking which disputed Hegel. Althogh he belongs to the non-rationalist stream of thought, continuing the line of Schelling, Kierkegaard,  Schopenhauer and  Nietzche, Rosenzweig relies heavily on the anthropological motifs of Feuerbach which are "the first revelation of renewal of thought" (Naharayim 232). However, there is also an interlacing of rationalism and anti-rationalism, as is evidenced by the following:

 "Revelation remembers back to its past, while at the same time remaining of the present; it recognizes its past as part of a world passed by...for in the world of things it recognizes the substantive ground of its belief in the immovable factuality of a historical event" (Star 215). "There is something in consciousness which is beyond consciousness...consciousness is the basis for reality, but consciousness in its very essence is also reality" (Naharayim 207).

 Thus, Rosenzweig`s philosophy follows two paths: One road philosophical theology chose for itself, in which the intellect is the nourishing factor. The philosophy of religion trekked the second path, revelation serving as its basis. These two paths, according to Rosenzweig, complement each other, one nourishing the other, and neither can exist independently. This conception is comparable to Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), who also created a great synthesis between science or limited consciousness and the perfection of belief.

However, while Aquinas derived belief from Christian revelation (Basic Writings), Rosenzweig derived it from the soul of man, according to which the relationship between philosophy and theology is determined. Rosenzweig, contrary to Steinheim, noted that he was assisted by intellectual, philosophical means to prove its substance. Rosenzweig opposed forcefully any existence-belief doctrine, which is itself based on his conscious investigations.  His anti-rationalist doctrine resulted from faith, but this faith was drawn from the rationalistic history of creation (Star 213), and in this aspect, his doctrine is not different from others constructed on logical, rationalistic concepts.

Rosenzweig opposed Hegel zealously. Instead of the dated abstract thought of Hegel came concrete "new thinking" connected to words, men and real experiences.

 Man is free - he is own master

The act of transferring the center of gravity from philosophy to the philosopher created not only a responsibility for man, but also emphasized that man is free. He is his own master; the entire responsibility for his existence rests on his shoulders alone. Man inhales his freedom from the will and imagination. He does not breathe freedom from the advancement and attainments of science as propounded by materialism, nor does he find it I the creative spirit of man as propounded by idealism nor from intellectual knowledge of the world pursuant to rationalism.  Nietzsche, for example, perceived a new form through whose strength of will exposes the subjective values which condition thought and human conduct on the freedom of his choice.

 Rosenzweig proclaims a "very personal type, a type of philosopher of world view, one who takes a position" (Star 143), who rises and flourishes on the pedestals of freedom, responsibility and ability at the time of the meeting of man, God and the world and, in regard to a Jew, during his struggle with the Jewish way of life of practical commandments.

 The philosophic "I" of Kierkegaard and Rosenzweig is not the solitary "I" of Immanuel Kant, an "I" which knows nothing about the world, with which it has no contact. Similarly, Descartes, in stating "Cogito ergo Sum" did not speak of his private "I" but of the abstract thinking "I". Yet Kant speaks incessantly about the "I." Which is the center of a methodical system, but as Kierkegaard says, insofar as one speaks persistently about the "I," that "I" becomes thinner and thinner until it becomes ultimately the actual spirit of the dead (Dialogical Philosophy 17).

 According to "the new thinking," freedom of choice is not a matter of obligation or compulsion which comes to man from without by command or decree. This freedom is man himself - existence - "existence for itself" ("Fürsichselbstsein"), according to the German philosopher, Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) or "being itself" ("sich zu eigenist") in the words of Martin Heidegger. Therefore, he cannot flee from himself except by suicide and death.

 Man has no choice but to be free. Thus, in every circumstance we are responsible, since responsibility rises from the ground of freedom (L`Existentialisme 64). One errs if he thinks he can pack and flee from himself via the Kantian Or Hegelian abstract dogma. Thus, man has two available courses: the way of favoring freedom and the way of opposing it. Life for the sake of freedom is true life, authentic life. One who utilizes freedom in order to fight it or to limit its domain in the world lives an insubstantial, inauthentic life. Such a life is not consistent with the nature of man (Portrait 75).

 Man is free to create good and evil, truth and falsehood. He approves or negates the world and proclaims his presence and nothingness. Man who chose freedom chose well, and not only for himself but for all humanity (L`Etre 143). The individual is the source of freedom. There is no freedom other than the freedom of the individual. For this reason, each man must create and develop the truth of the test of the values as well as the values themselves.  In respect of our lives and experiences, there is no world other than the world of man. Even values are nothing other than values as they relate to individual man. Thus, the individual must create values. Without the individual, they would not have arisen and  there would be no values (L`Existentialisme 34-35). Man by nature is neither good nor evil. He is good or evil to the extent that he increases freedom in the world.  

 Freedom, then, is neither a priori nor objective. It is the being of man who lives it every day and every moment. It is the true existence since it exists for itself (L`Etre 641).

 On the difficulties which gave birth to existentialism

Rosenzweig sought refuge from extreme subjectivism when he abandoned in 1913 the idealistic philosophy and the historicism of Friedrich Meinecke (1862-1954), his teacher (see Die Entstehung). He returned to theology, to the non-rational faith philosophy, while deliberating on "the clear brightness"  (Star 143) of subjectivism, which Heidegger rooted in his creation of pure subjectivist philosophy.

 Rosenzweig`s explanation indicates the lack of clarity that existed in the world of philosophy. Each philosopher, religious or not, aspired frankly to nullify the being of man as object, desiring to see man as subject only. However, in perceiving the "I" as subject alone and turning their back on the objective element in their philosophical thinking, these philosophers exposed themselves to significant difficulties. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdiaev (1874-1948) spoke of the decline of freedom, of freedoms lack of candor and man's subordination to freedom. Jaspers saw in subjectivism a prison, comparable to the snail who builds its house and is forever tied to it.  It is not surprising that in this attempt the real freedom withdrew upon the presentation of an imaginary freedom. 

 The freedom represented is abstract, a vague freedom. Indeed, there is no true freedom of choice since our options are always limited a d dependent on factors upon which we have no, or inconsequential, control. Man did not pray for simple, corporeal or metaphysical freedom. He wanted real freedom in thought, economics, religion and throughout his personal life. Man wanted freedom to lift stumbling blocks from the path of life, control  disease  and catastrophes, master the environment and improve generally that which exists. Such a freedom is expressed in action innovation, creation, and revelation of the clandestine and knowledge o the hidden. Existential freedom is not turned toward the external world of the real and vital meeting with God and the world; instead, it is turned to the abstract, to the intangible.

Freedom of choice, then, is minuscule. According to existentialist thinking, we are not free and independent people, but rather each of us is made gradually "a man of the multitude," one among many, one who lives by the doctrine of "sit and do not act.":

 1. The lack of knowledge.

 We live our life without understanding it, without knowing anything about our purpose and what we must do. Even if man has a conscious nature, he cannot conceive reality. As a result, he cannot be at home in the world, and he is "thrown" into an adversarial environment. This alienation is apparent in Sartre's novels and plays, the dramatis personae being uprooted from their societal environment and removed from their past, each lacking internal spiritual unity. What determines the character of the confrontation of man with his world is not the intellect; instead it is a certain essence, which is described as nausea or anguish at the finality and fragmentation of human existence.

 In respect of life and death, existence is nothing other than passing from nothing to nothing. Being, in its generality, is not understandable and cannot be known since it is connected, on the one hand, to human consciousness and, on the other, it is given to us forever fragmented so that man perceives always his limitations, the fragmentation of his being and consciousness. Franz Kafka (1883-1924) stresses that without knowledge, minuscule man is lost I the modern world, which is arranged with no way out. There is no other possible way for the hero of The Trial (Der Prozeβ ) other than to accept the judgment of death, though he does not know for what, why nor by whom he is accused, tried and sentenced.

 Modern society is mysterious, a sort of blind and evil force which prevents the individual from exercising free choice and the joy of life, permitting him only to yield to his uncomprehended fate. Without knowledge, one can not know the expected, and the lack of this knowledge leads to fear of the unknown, and this fear leads to uncertainty, confusion and helplessness.

 2. The fear of death.

 Martin Heidegger, the extreme and heartless realist, presents an authentic being, founded o  the possibility of a race toward (the fear of) death. One must live, Heidegger claims, though the sole reason for his life is his death. From the moment one enters the world, we accept the sentence of death. One has no choice in this matter. If so, how can man function with this ever-present active and tragic obsession? For fear is a strong emotional reaction with physiological consequences such as paleness, trembling, accelerated pulse and breathing and dryness of mouth which can ultimately result in the cessation of all hope and total paralysis of creation caused by the entire waste of one's energy.

 3. The lack of purpose.

Existentialism will never perceive purpose in man since man is not yet defined inexorably. The objective of a priori good disappeared since there is not now any compete and infinite consciousness that will calculate it. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) wrote: "If God does not exist, then everything is permitted" (The Brothers Karamazov). Sartre and Nietzsche ignored the existence of God, and Heidegger stated that all existence is man and nothing more.  Man abandons the world of values and the a priori commandments, which can justify his behavior because he is unable to find something to rest upon his world has no purpose and therefore also no ethical values.

 Such is the dismal condition of man. He is comparable to one who walks on a tightrope above the abyss whose bottom disappears from sight. Is there no exit from this fearful vision?

 The conception of religious existentialists as a clear expression of "the New Thinking"

The religious existentialists asserted that since existence is a tragedy and there is nothing on earth that can free man from the feeling of trepidation, man is likely to conclude that he must thing also of Good. Man is not acquainted with God and does not know if God will accept his entreaty, but man must take the leap toward the concealed, toward God. This daring leap contains the belief and hope that God exists, that he is compassionate and that God can help.

 The religious philosophers, Berdiaev, Karl Barth, Buber, Kafka, Kierkegaard, Schleiermacher, Jaspers, Marcel and Rosenzweig, chose a solution of fear and dread, which fear is based on the failure of the intellect to attain belief. The intellect rises up against belief.

 Religious man is forever immersed in the fear that perhaps the intellect will predominate and the faith in God will be lost. He must exit the boundaries of the intellect and jump into the sea of faith. Belief is the greatest and most difficult thing it commences at the place that thought ceased to act. The imaginary freedom of Sartre is infinite, likening man to God and causing the "heavy burden man must bear" in the words of Kierkegaard. The religious philosophers exchanged and imaginary freedom for belief; they considered belief the true freedom.

 In respect of belief, the religious philosophers determined the following:

 1. Knowlidge is a requisite and decisive factor.

 For example, Rosenzweig "recognizes the substantive ground of its belief in the immovable factuality of a historical event" (Star 215). Rosenzweig considers the facts of leaving Egypt and the occurrence of the events on Mount Sinai as facts, which comprise the source from which we know the creator.

                                    "Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors , according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt  before your eyes? Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God there is none else beside him." (Deut. 4, 34-35)

 Rosenzweig`s position is clear:

 The presentness of the miracle of revelation is and remains its content, its historicity, however, is its ground and its warrant...Now it also finds the highest certain possibility for it, but only in this its historicity, its `positivity`. The certainty does not precede that bliss; it must, however, follow it. Experienced belief only comes to rest in this certainty of having been long ago summoned, by name, to belief (Star 215).

 Elsewhere in his primary work, he wrote that "truth will forever be what it was whether from the a priori aspect or whether it is raised in the holy essence or earlier times" (Star 141). On the objective basis of viewing the past is the special means of observing reality determined. The accepted perception is derived from the assumption that the link between God and man is a pre-revelation; it is requisite to a perceived creation, in the accepted conception, as a willful act. Man passes from the monologue of the past to dialogue with God in the present. He passes from the knowledge that God is the creator and is present to the revelation that breathed life into this objective knowledge and made it the most vital, real and personal experience.  There is an "opening of something locked" (Star 194, 195). And in the light of this revelation of love, "the souls can roam the world with eyes open and without dreaming. Now and forevermore it will remain in God's proximity. The `Thou art mine` which was said to it draws a protective circle about its steps. Now it knows: it need but stretch out its right and in order to fee God's right and coming to meet it" (Star 215).

 Rosenzweig tells us that "there is a God" (Star 212,215). In developing the ideas of the German Protestant theologian Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834), Rosenzweig asserted "there is something in consciousness which is above consciousness" (Naharayim 207). That is, "consciousness is the basis of realization, but there is also actuality in consciousness itself" (Naharayim 207). This actuality, according to Rosenzweig, is the irrational, metaphysical knowledge, which gives internal experience to belief. It frees one from the burden of determinism. Subsequent to Rosenzweig, Jaspers would speak of the certain refuge that belief grants, and Marcel and Buber of the "I and Thou" as an expression of relationship between man and God in prayer (see Einführung in die Philosophie). In the philosophy of each, man is certain.

 Man can now be free in his creative acts, his desire and ability; he can create the reality, which is the subject of belief. Man cannot believe without an actual act. If, for example, Abraham had taken the intellectual, ethical path he would have disobeyed God since the intellect forbids human sacrifice. But Abraham was seized by the restraint of belief. He received his morals from his belief and not his intellect. This sensation demonstrated the objective certainty of faith, for which he is called the "mighty man of faith." Abraham teaches that what is impossible according to the calculations of men of morality and honesty is not only possible but is certain by means of the power of faith (compare Dialogical Philosophy 90-111). Abraham acted pursuant to the words of the prophet Amos 1:8: "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Such is the security, which grows from the experience of "walking humbly with thy God."

 The soul needs irrational means to nourish its unconscious part. Man finds these irrational means in the rational and irrational revelation via the religious belief in his soul. The believer wants his creator to understand the foundations of belief; he wants to believe with intelligence and understanding and not only mechanically the commandments of God. The assumption of believing man is as expressed in Psalms: "An ignorant man does not know, and a fool will not understand this." The irrational is joined with conscious knowledge such that each requires the other and each is nourished b the other.

 Rosenzweig tries to understand and know man by creating bridges with God and the world. And he succeeds in this task. He sees in man total humanity. Rosenzweig perceives perfect method in the world instead of the fragmentation, for example, which Jaspers found. Knowing God's love, man can now anticipate eternity to the present and, as a result, redeem the entire world. Man knows exactly from where the world came and to where it is going. He is not indifferent to the despair of the individual and the multitude. Man will not be lost in the world in the manner Kafka described nor will he be dislodged from his environment as dramatized by Sartre, nor will he be the tragic, heartless being of Heidegger. Instead, he will be immersed in love as he marches to the arms of eternity and the objective of the joy of life, happiness, security and fulfillment.

 2. Rosenzweig perceives the fear of death as authentic, tragic reality, though he does not, like Heidegger, foresee in death and extreme, cruel, realistic termination which thwarts previous action.

In Rosenzweig`s opinion, death is something and not "nothing, " as Heidegger maintained ("Investigation" 22-24, 39-40). Death is the seed of life, the fetus that is born from the body of death. The soul died first and was resurrected in the arms of its lover.

 Rather than being the end, death is the exclamation point of new life, life nourished, in fact, from the sense of death. Rosenzweig opened his book with a sentence about death and concluded it with the call "into life." He conquers death with the power of love because love is stronger than death. God's love removes man's loneliness and commands him to recompense with love. The beloved feels himself borne and protected by love. I am forced to live, but the single reason is not my death but rather my life, and not just life, but eternal life.

 3. Man has purpose.

 With the power of love directed from God, man loves his neighbor. He is liberated from the "you" in favor of the "we."  The love of others is walking toward eternity, redemption of the world, the establishment of the kingdom of heaven. Eternity is the product of anticipation of the future in the present. The purpose of man is to march toward eternal life, to true bliss. With this purpose, man fulfills himself in all his essence.

 Rosenzwieg tells us that "there is a God" (Star 212, 215) as it is said in Ps. 73, 23: "yet I was always with you, you held my right hand." (The words "I was always with you" are inscribed on Rosenzweig`s tombstone.) Man is certain that God will respond to the solitary soul, (Star 212) "for all His ways are judgment; a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He." (Deut. 32.4)

 This certainty is the heart and soul of religion. It is the vital and true reality - the individual's awareness of God without requiring proof. Man creates the reality, which is the object of faith.

 Man, with the internal power of belief, is at home in the temple of God, recognizing, knowing and loving Him. With his faith and knowledge of God, man also comes to know the world and, as a result, is able to redeem it. Knowing the love of God vanquishes death. Indeed, death is something, which creates a source to provoke new life. The existence of death strengthens love and ultimately redeems man and the world. The singular purpose of man's existence is not his death; instead it is his life, a life of eternity.

 Rosenzweig paved for man a way of life, which protects man from the insufferable side    effects of the fear of death. This is a path which brig man to his life's purpose – striding toward redemption and establishment of the kingdom of Heaven, obliterating the fearful sting of death along the way and concluding with the victory of life over death (The victory of life 46).

*) The life story of Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) has a strong link with his methodology. He grew up as an only child in an affluent, liberal Jewish home in Germany. In this home, he learned to love German secular culture. Although the members of his family recognized themselves as Jews, He did not receive a formal education in Judaism. When Rosenzweig matured, he studied medicine, history and philosophy at a secular university, but he did not find enough satisfaction in these disciplines. Instead, he looked to religion for fulfillment. Under the influence of several young Jewish friends who has converted to Christianity, He convinced himself that those who wanted to believe in God needed to be Christian. So Rosenzweig decided to convert as his friends had. This was during the summer of 1913. Before he left Judaism, however, he attended a small Berlin synagogue on Yom Kippur. While there, he witnessed such devotion and sentiment from the congregation that he no longer thought it necessary to leave his birthright. He turned back to Judaism. What he hoped to find in a Christian church, that strong spiritual belief, which sustains a human being, he found in this small, traditional synagogue. When he left this service, he was profoundly moved. He wrote his cousin "After prolonged, and I believe thorough, self-examination, I have reversed my decision . It no longer seems necessary to me, and therefore, being what I am, no longer possible. I will remain a Jew." He spent the next academic year reading Jewish texts and cultivating a close friendship with Hermann Cohen.

 Yet, Franz Rosenzweig had to deal with one more spiritual conflict. And this time it was to lead to a philosophical revolution.

 Rosenzweig was sent to the Balkan front to serve as an artilleryman with the German army during World War I. The young Rosenzweig, a patriot who loved his homeland, wanted to devote himself to it completely as a fighter, The young man, however, who has never suffered nor been impoverished suddenly found himself on the battlefield and meeting death every day. The war dared Rosenzweig personally, tested his ideals. Survival became paramount to him. He wanted to live, to come cack healthy and whole. In his eyes, life was his only possession. Yet all his developing, spiritual ideas did not seem clear and definite. He has just met Judaism. When he reached the front, under the fire of the enemy's gunners, Rosenzweig understood that all the things that he though were important were not. Earlier when he was a student of philosophy, he learned that only man's reasoning can raise him above death and above suffering; only it controls happiness and an orderly world. In the battlefield, however, Rosenzweig found it impossible to ignore the evil inherent in man, all the evil that brings wars such as the one he was fighting. While on the front, he started his masterpiece, The Star of Redemption, on army postcards and letters to his mother. Rosenzweig saw this work as his lifetime project. As an existentialist scholar, Rosenzweig tried to put the basic precepts of his theory into his everyday life such as the originator of existentialism, Kierkegaard, did. When he completed his work shortly after the war and saw it published in 1921, he maintained that what he had written was the basis upon which he would live, thereby implementing the basic precepts he discussed. Within a dew short years, Rosenzweing learned he had a disease, one which eventually paralyzed his whole body except for one finger. In spite of his disease, he held firmly to his existentialism. With aid from his family and a specially designed typewriter, he kept writing many essays and articles. Some of these articles provide the basis upon which Rosenzweig founded and established "The Free Jewish Studies House" in Frankfurt. In addition, hoping to five the Bible new spiritual depth, Rosenzweig translated the Bible into German with Martin Buber. He also translated an commented on the poems of Yehuda Haleve. He died at forty-three. 

 Rosenzweig`s life made him an existentialist and made him remain an existentialist. The experience of the war and then his illness compelled him to think in terms of survival. But not only that, these experiences continually kept the idea of survival ever-present for him. They forced him to question the meaning of life and death and how those concepts related to him as he live each moment of his life. When those life-threatening experiences were interpreted through his earlier return to Judaism, Rosenzweig established for himself a prominent place in modern Jewish thought by brining together Judaism and existentialism.

 LIST OF SOURCE MATERIAL ABBREVIATIONS

  Rotenstreich, Natan Al Hakiuym HaYehudi BaZman Hazeh  [Jewish Existence in the Present Age]. Tel-Aviv: Kibbutz Artzi Publ., 1972

Al Hakiyum

Aquinas, Thomas. Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. New york: Random, 1945

Basic Writings

Bergman, Samuel Hugo. Dialogical Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Buber. Jerusalem: Bialik Inst., 1974.

Dialogical Philosophy

Meinicke, Friedrich. Die Entstehung Der Historismus [The Becoming of History]. Munich: R. Oldenburg, 1936.

Die Entstehung

Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich. Enzyklopӓdie Der Philosophischen Wissenchaften Im Grundrisse [Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences]. Hamburg: F. Meiner, 1959.

Enzyklopӓdie

Mendes-Flohr, Paul. "From Revelation to Religious Faith: The Testimony of Franz Rosenzweig`s Unpublished Diaries."Leo Baeck institute Yearbook. New York: Leo Baeck inst., 1970. 161-174.

"From Revelation"

Glatzer, Nahum N. Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought. Philadelphia: Jewish Publ. Soc. Of Amer., 1953.

His Life

Sartre, Jean-Paul. L`Etre et le Niant [Being and Nothingness]. Paris: Gallimard, 1948.

L`Etre

-------. L`Existentialisme est un Humanisme [Existentialism and Humanism]. 2n ed. Jerusalem: Carmel, 1990.

L`Existentialisme

Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von. Popular Scientific Lectures. New York: Dover, 1962. 

Lectures

Schwarcz, Moshe. MiMytos I`Hitgalut [From Myth to Revelation]. Tel-Aviv: HaKibbutz haMeuchad, 1978.

MiMytos

Rosenzweig, Franz. Naharayim [Selected Writings of Franz Rosenzweig]. Trans. Yehoshua Amir. Jerusalem: Bialik Ins., 1977.

Naharayim

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Portrait of the Anti-Semite. New York: Prtisan Rev., 1946.

Portrait

Kierkegaard, Seren. Post-Scriptum [Final Scientifique aux Miettes Philosophiques]. Trans. Paul Petit. Paris Gallimard, 1949.

Post Scriptum

Feuerbach, L.A. Principles of the Philosophy of the Future. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966.

Principles of Philosophy

Rosenzweig, Franz. The Star of Redemption. 2d ed. Trans. William W. Hallo. New York: U of Notre Dame P. 1985.

Star

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Vol. 2. Tel-Aviv: HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, 1965.

The Brothers Karamazov

Krouz, Zadok. The Victory of Life Over Death 3ded. New York: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY P. 1996

The Victory of Life

Schopenhaure, Arthur. Die Welt als Will and Vorstellung. [The World as will and Idea]. Leipzig: Hesse & Becker, 1919.

The World

Zadok krouz was born in Jerusalem. He studied in various `yeshivoth` in Israel. He enlisted in the army, where he served in a combat engineering unit.

His academic career began at the Hebrew university of Jerusalem, where he obtained a master`s degree, `cum laude`.He has published books, various articles, a collection of writings on language and literature, religious existential meditation, philosophical doctrine of the human spirit and produced a number of self-hypnosis audio cassettes for improving the quality of life.



דף הבית

Numbers 13:8

Abstract

The article  will discuss place as dialogue between man and God.  Man's place is in the middle of the universe as a living, real creation. Everything else surrounds him, including those people that he meets. This idea forces man to be within a specific time and place. Man's place refers to a specific time, the present, and a specific place, existence in the present. This makes man's place part of a dynamically moving stream of changing life-experiences, never stagnant and always flowing.

For this dynamic to occurs, man's place must be in a frame of dialogue that requires him to use the word "you," that is, the second persona singular pronoun used with a verb in the present tense. This pronoun forces man's communication to be immediate and present and quite interactive.

From this usage, a frame of dialogue develops naturally among three elements: God, man and the world. Together they create the All (Whole) through their dialogue with each other. Man's place, then, is in dialogue with God and the world.

Man’s place is midpoint in specific time and place.

In Rosenzweig’s philosophy, man’s place is at the center of the universe, as a real being. Man is not an object of the intellect¹ which puts the world in order; rather, his is the center, the pivot around which everything turns: “Wherever it [a proper name] is, there is a midpoint…” (Star 218); “…on the seat of the kingdom of the world” (Naharayim 237). Natan Rotenstreich, in “The Philosophical Foundation of Franz Rosenzweig” (74-87), presents three points in support of this contention, which, in slightly expanded form, are as follows:

1. The intellect voids the personal and individual existence of man; it makes the existence of man one variation of the inclusive unity. Rationally, there is no place for singularity, and therefore in this confrontation between the inclusive unity and individuality and, in particular, when speaking about the individuality of man, a centralized intellect cannot be assumed. When man is the object of the intellect, the subject is grasped by the object, such the self-consciousness is linked with the “I” as the form and content of perception. Everything is concentrated in the “I,” comprising a one-dimensional reality. The “I” is all’ consequently, the polarity of the elements God, man and the world is nullified. Polarity assumes that each of the three elements (God, man and the world), is complete in and of itself, each preserving its characteristics; the conception of “unity of the I” embraces all the elements within “I,” negating the singularity of the elements. Everything results from the I. The world, man and God are not independent elements outside the I. They are united in the total “all” of the “I.”

…the idea of reducing everything back to the self. The method of basing the experience of the world and of God on the experiencing self is still so much a commonplace of the contemporary philosopher that anyone who rejects this method and prefers instead to trace his experience of the world back to the world, and his experience of God to God is simply dismissed. This philosophy regards the reductive method as so self-evident that when it takes the trouble to sentence a heretic it is only because he has been guilty of the wrong variety of reduction. He is burned at the stake, either as a “rank materialist” who claimed that everything is world, or as an “ecstatic mystic” who claimed that everything is God. This philosophy never admits that perhaps someone might not want to say that everything “is” something else. (Naharayim 191)

This reality, the nullification of polarity, raises the surprising question: can there be self-immanence? (See, Introduction: Hegelian Theory and Reactions to it as Background to “The New Thinking,” p.7.) The serpent which eats its tail and consumes itself in its entirety, can this yet be called reality? (Naharayim 208) “…peel them as much as you want – you will never find anything but onion and not anything ‘totally other’” (Naharayim 223). The intellect as reality of one dimension only negates the self-existence of man insofar as he is man. The intellect lacks reality; it is immanence without external links and thus an immanence which proceeds nowhere.

Self-immanence is expressed in Hegel’s teaching that the real is the intellect and the intellect is real; nature, science and art are each a realization of reason. Individual man also is the materialization of reason, and only that which is reason exists.

Self-immanence is the Hegelian conception of the world via a consolidated and rigid view, a look replete with the ideal that science will never attain the infiniteness to the world nor can it bring man to concrete reality, to the recesses of his soul.

Self-immanence is the absolute spirit of complete reason and of abstract thought; it is not considered part of actual man who lives self-reliantly in the real world with his experiences and his real problems. Self-immanence encloses man in the world of abstract concepts and the infinite, and man does not know his life’s path. Hegel, by means of the supposition of immanence from man to man which commences with his reason, turns man into a segment of the theory, a portion of the cosmic world idea system. The world and man are one unit – they are “one flesh”.

Thus, due to self-immanence, man is comparable to a miniature world; he loses the connection to a real and vital actuality. It is not the self-immanence of reason which brings man to concrete and true consciousness; instead, it is the specific, fundamental experience of the existing elements themselves.

Rosenzweig defines thinking as follows: “…thinking” means thinking for no one else and speaking to no one else (and here, if you prefer, you may substitute “everyone” or the well-known “all the world” for “no one”) (Naharayim 200).

The inclusivity, or the unity of all, voids the connections, the links of the elements, and turns them into unity. Therefore, there is no connection to another. All human reality is swallowed up in unity, and the result is the absence of individuality, and of the futility of existence and ultimately the denial of death. [In opposition to this view, Rosenzweig considers the death and life of man to be the main point of the existential philosophy of man and not the “I” in the idealistic version, in which man serves as a point of reference for the problems of ethics, just as in science it is only the event.] Star of Redemption begins with the sentence “All cognition of the All originates in death, in the fear of death” and ends with the words “INTO LIFE.” The inclusive intellect denies and mocks the existence of fear, which is the essence of man in his surroundings. “…[I]n death…originates all cognition of the All…fear of death…roars Me! Me! Me!...Only the singular can die and everything mortal is solitary…death is not what is seems, not Nought, but a something from which there is no appeal, which is not to be done away with…And man’s terror as he trembles before this sting ever condemns the compassionate lie of philosophy’s cruel lying” (Star 45). The fear results from man’s reality—his being, encompassing the possibility of the end (“toward the end”). In his fear of death, man is made independent. Death is revealed as the special possibility of man as individual to be himself solely, without a trace of generality. Heidegger even reached the substantiality of death, which makes man live in his surroundings to the point that the living feed from death, since death is a possibility belonging to the reality of man.²

Rosenzweig attack on the method of the intellect can be summarized as follows: The intellect as that which brings order to the world is a poor alternative to the truth of multiplicity,³ an alternative which sees the essence of man as an adorned segment of the world or the Almighty, disguised, revealed in man as unity. And man becomes unity or the “All” rather than being an element, independent and authentic, unaltered, a theoretical, conceptual unity. “Philosophy was accused of an incapacity or, more exactly, of an inadequacy which it could not admit, since it could not recognize it” (Star 49). The intellect preferred understanding to man, since, for existential man, “speaking means speaking to some one and thinking for some one. And this some one is always a quite definite some one, one who has not merely ears, like “all the world,” but also a mouth” (Naharayim 231).

1. Historically, the intellect has an anti-religious or anti-theological tendency, because the intellect has given understanding precedence to the data understood by it. Therefore, it prefers understanding to fundamental data, including the fact of the existence of God. Can it be that the “I” creates the world within it? A world not dependent on a transcendental being contradicts the religious faith in the act of creation, which depends upon a transcendental being (Naharayim 225-6).

1. The intellect tends toward unity and monism. It prefers the homogonous to the heterogeneous. This tendency creates a false impression of a unified world; whereas, by its nature, the world is not unified. The intellect summarizes the belief that there is one source for all the natural – both material and spiritual – phenomena, that all of reality is explained by one principle alone (Naharayim 223).

These three points loosely summarize the basic reasons Rosenzweig did not adhere to the intellectual approach: that man is the object of the intellect which sets the world in order. The place of man, according to Rosenzweig, is in the center of the active universe as an actual being. Rosenzweig holds that man, as the center, orders the external world pursuant to his experience, and which experience enables man to see light (Naharayim 223; Star 218). The experience enlightens everything, whereas an objective matter is distant and receding. His entire vision is founded on the subjectivity of the human experience, and from this view—and only from it—is revealed “everything” in the communicative network. Man is the lord of creation,⁴ according to Rosenzweig, “in the chair of the kingdom of the world” (Naharayim 237).

Yet, with all the singularity of Rosenzweig’s personality and teaching, his philosophy is neither singular nor unusual. It is a part of a more inclusive spiritual movement, whose beginnings were inherent in the period of post-Hegelian thought in Germany. The core of such thought was not longer the abstract method, nor the concept in its independent movement, but rather actual man, vital man, fettered with his existential problems.

…to know God-man-world means to know what they do or what is done to them in these times of substantiality – do this to this and is done to this by this (Naharayim 230)…[the approach of “the New Thinking”] knows only what experience attempts – but this it knows concretely, without paying heed to philosophy which denounces it as knowledge beyond any possible experience. (Naharayim 240)⁵

Rosenzweig writes that “the goal of our philosophy is not to be philosophers but people, and, therefore, we must give to our philosophy a dimension of our humanity” (Briefe 718). The human, living, real existence is the action center of the entire structure whereby the actual human existence, the entirety in its reality, is given to man by actual revelation; the theological turning point becomes clear from the central position of the human being also in theology. Living man, as a real individual being with his real existential problems, anguished in body and soul, has forever been the subject of theology. Philosophy and theology each deal with the center of the life of man. “As opposed to the Copernican revolution of Copernicus…the Copernican change of Kant compensates him by seating man on the chair of the kingdom of heaven in a much more real manner that Kant himself thought” (Naharayim 237).

        This is the focus of Rosenzweig’s philosophy, which commences and terminates in individual man. The man about whom he writes is a real, everyday man, not the abstract man who is the subject of many philosophical theories. Possibly Rosenzweig was influenced, inter alia, by the Biblical story, for within the story of creation of the world stands precisely the story of the creation of individual man. Clearly, the story of the creation aspires and leads to Day Six, to the description of the creation of man, for that is the main object. Our Sages expressed this in their commentaries and even graphically (Bereshit Raba I). Why, it was asked, was the world created with the Hebrew letter Beth? The response was that Beth is closed on three sides. That is, you, man, do not look behind or to the sides, but in front of you to see the path you are taking. This is the purpose: to see where you are going and not to demand the more wondrous than you. When the Hebrew letter Aleph attacked, asking why the world was not created with it, it was told that the Ten Commandments begin with Aleph, and the entire world was created only for the Ten Commandments. That is, guidelines for the way one should live. They are commandments to man located in the center. “Wherever it is, there is a midpoint… For it demands a midpoint in the world for the midpoint, a beginning for the beginning of its own experience” (Star 218). This also appears in Ps. 8:6, which completes the story of Creation: “for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and thou crownest him with glory and honor.” Man is the midpoint of the world, demanding the midpoint in the world and being “seated on the chair of the kingdom of the world” (Naharayim 237).

        Everything else surrounds man, including the other with whom he meets. A meeting or conversation between two beings is a fulfillment of one of a multitude of possibilities available to man. This anthropocentric idea requires man to be at a specific time and place, for his individuality cannot be forever without time and place:

…[The I or the Thou] is its own category....Rather it carries its here and now with it. Wherever it is, there is a midpoint and wherever it opens its mouth, there is a beginning.... In keeping with its creation as man and at the same time as ‘Adam,’ the ‘I’ is the midpoint and beginning within itself. For it demands a midpoint in the world for the midpoint, a beginning for the beginning of its own experience....Thus both the midpoint and the beginning in the world must be provided to experience by this grounding, the midpoint in space, the beginning in time.... The ground of revelation is midpoint and beginning in one. (Star 218-19)

        The place of every person is the place and time in which he finds himself physically. In addition to man, time and place to Rosenzweig are a beginning and a way to the “ahistorical” concept in which the Jewish religion is included and in which man serves a central role (Star 323-356). Man must first walk the long path of history and understand its process in time and place. for this purpose he chooses for himself the symbol of “The Star of Redemption,” the “Star of David” with its six points, symbolizing God, the world and man on the one hand, and the creation, revelation and redemption, on the other. These symbolize, according to Rosenzweig, the historical process in time and place, which, by their realization by man in singular place and time, are no longer concepts or forms or pure reason as understood by Kant, but actual reality (Star 397-431). Kant asserts that our cognition applies to the phenomenon alone, whereas the thing itself disappears from it. In other words, we only know that which is given to us by experience in two stages: 1) in observation which arranges our cognition in space and time, and 2) via the intellect which supplies the categorization, with whose assistance that which is observed becomes an object of thought. Kant, as noted, ignores the actual reality resulting from the relationship of man with his surroundings.⁶ According to Rosenzweig, time and place have polar significance, for Judaism does not link its fate with factors of time and place nor with its national language, thus it could exist also without a country and without language, and all the external, historical factors do not comprise Judaism’s essence. “We alone relied on the blood and abandoned the land” (“Wir allein vertrauten dem Blut und liessen das Land”) (Star 329). The people existed because of the closeness of the people’s relationship and association with God, which is measured in the time present and place – the world. However, on one hand, independence in this external life, gains eternal life for the people. On the other hand, Rosenzweig does not yield on time and place in the meeting between man and God and the earthly possessions; Holy land and holy language, in which the Jewish people are linked in its sectarian life. This dual polarity, of time versus not of time, finality versus endlessness shows that “Israel is the symbol of eternity in time” (Rotenstreich, MaHashavah 2:240).

דף הבית

The place of man relates to a particular time, the present, and a particular place; existence is in the present. Everything which is grasped by man is grasped instantly at the time. There is adherence to a reality with a structure counted by time. Time is expressed actively. The action is called “Zeitwort”⁷ in German and is the fundamental subject of existential man. In 1925, Rosenzweig wrote the article “The New Thinking,” which was published in October of that year in the Jewish monthly Der Morgen. This important article is included in the short writings of Rosenzweig. This article, an important explanation of Star, teaches the importance of time in the new thinking. Contrary to Spinoza, according to whom there is no time, but only a false resemblance to it, and Kant, who holds that time is a subjective form of observation, and Schopenhauer, who agrees with Kant and Hegel, Rosenzweig demands that the philosopher reconcile with the world as it is, and that, initially, he relate seriously to time as occurring essence. In time we examine the remuneration in daily life-renewal. Speech, conversation and dialogue require time and are nourished by time. “…but the verb is the word of time. For time is made entirely real in it. Not in time does every event occur, but it, time, itself occurs” (Naharayim 228). The place of man is concrete; thus, time in man is actual and concrete. Time is connected also to the movement of the skies, which gives time its absolute reality. For “local time” is measured pursuant to agreement, which states that the moment the sun passes the local meridian will be fixed as 12:00. The passing of time between two successive passings of the meridian is one sun day. In astronomy, time receives a more actual dimension: the meridian is the great circle in the heavens which passes via the zenith and the nadir of its southern and northern points. The sun and the other heavenly bodies arrive at the meridian in their daily movements at the highest point above the horizon, and at that moment the astronomical skylight fades.

        Time is not, as Newton or Kant thought, simply an abstract dimension in which things occur; rather, time itself occurs, and what happens cannot be separated from the temporality. Sir Isaac Newton (642-1727), devised the foundations of classical physics, whose influence was crucial to the industrial and scientific development of the world. He was the first to explain, in his book Principia, the movements of all the heavenly components. Newton believed that “time” is absolute size and, owing to his religious beliefs, believed in the existence of systems of reference at rest. According to him, God was not in motion, for the only place that can contain God is the one that is determined by the eternal need of nature. On the contrary, Rosenzweig holds that time itself occurs and is not absolute size lacking movement. Kant presented a summary of his new theory from another perspective. All sense impressions, maintains Kant, appear and follow when they have been arranged previously in a framework of space and time. Time is a homogeneous item, all of whose parts are contained within it; therefore, it should be seen as a resemblance of observation and not as Rosenzweig holds, as an event occurring in itself (Naharayim 228; Star 231). Kant claims that we can imagine space or time empty of everything, but not that they do not exist. From this assertion it is clear that Kant believes in the conception of absolute time and space, a sort of permanent coordinate system, in which are set particulars and occurrences. In Kant’s view, there is no independent being which functions as occurrence by itself, but rather a form of a priori perception of our spirit, which we impose on our many feelings.⁸ Temporality is the background upon which everything acts, and just as one cannot begin a conversation from the end, or just as one cannot commence a war with a covenant of peace, or life with death, nothing can be estranged from its temporality. The tenses of reality, the present, past and future, cannot be interchanged. They are not indifferent parts of the indifferent path of time, for there is a special weight attached to the future for which we hope.

Man is the pivot surrounded by God and those others with whom he converses: “Those present, whether man or God, must not speak in a concealed language, here there is place only for hearing and speaking” (Naharayim 230-231): “…in place of the method of thought…comes the method of speaking” (Naharayim 231). This conversation is connected to time and nourished by it. Reality is not being, but is occurrence, and each event must occur in time; otherwise, the absence of time denies the substance of the occurrence, which is presented as thought or spiritual essence, minus the earthly sphere to which man is linked. Existential man in conversation with others must be considered in time, involved with, and, indeed, a part of time (Naharayim 228; Star 231). The existence of man in the language of this conversation can only be stated one after the other; it cannot be stated together: “…‘speaking’ means speaking to some one and thinking for some one” (Naharayim 231). In order for this speaking and thinking to be understood, one must be present as when man speaks to his friend  and each understands the other, for they do not say everything simultaneously, but each idea, each word, follows and combines as speech reality occurring between man and man as man. Temporality of existence is more accurate than metaphysical world time. “Not in time occurs that which takes place, rather it, time, occurs” (Naharayim 228). “Just as each event in the present and the future belongs to it, and without which it cannot be understood or confirmed, such is reality. It also has a past and future, a past which existed forever and an infinite future” (Naharayim 230). “Cognition is also linked from each moment to this moment and God cannot make the past not-past nor the future not-future” (Naharayim 229). Cognition is dependent on time; cognition deals in time.

        Martin Heidegger’s explanation is opposed to this one: again, one is not requested to meld time into a conceptual consciousness, but in particular to make the conceptual consciousness dependent on time. Time is the horizon and not a vessel in which we are located, but is the manner in which we live.⁹

        In time we find, on the one hand, its components passing and disappearing, and on the other hand, movement, since because there is a passing and disappearing, we move of necessity to a new time (Naharayim 233). With the beating of time, we move onto something new. Man’s place renews itself from moment to moment (Star 196,), on the one hand, because it is anchored in what we begin, the place of commencement, and on the other hand, because it is anchored in an interpretation beyond that which is given, since the occurring reality is wound up in time and it has forever also a deviation from the present, current time to the future.

        From that which is presented above, one sees in time (as a category of occurrence) the true dimension of the active, dynamic place of man in his meeting with his surroundings. It must be emphasized, however, that time is not understood as a given and previously defined dimension, of the type which enables its sequential appearance (as Kant holds). Rather, time itself is defined and gains meaning by means of the occurring experience of man’s interaction with others. An analogy may be drawn between time as the horizon of the understanding of human existence according to Heidegger and time as horizon of the understanding of the world of belief according to Rosenzweig. In this matter, as in many others between the two philosophers, each is influenced by Schelling and Kierkegaard (“Heidegger and Rosenzweig”; “Investigation” 24-29).

        How does man’s place occur in time? How does time past, present and future define itself in relation to the place of man? The answer is, as the entire reality turns into a program of the occurrence of man’s interaction with others (God and the world), the great epochs which the Torah defines as “creation” and “redemption” are created. Man exists in the present, and this present characterizes the dynamic reality and the actuality of the place of man as an occurring action, for actions occurring in the past no longer exist and the future has not yet taken place. Therefore, the present is raised to a level of time dimension of occurrence in man, both in his place and in relation to his surroundings. Man’s place is an occurrence in concrete time; it exits its essential past and enters its living present (Star 195). Man is thus found within his closely defined private area, his four handbreadths, ¹⁰ and this makes him a living God, a God in the present: “…[for] within revelation he at once becomes manifest” (Star 192).

        The place of man is linked and tied to the occurrence in which the language of dialogue plays a crucial part. The language of dialogue knows man is involved in time in a most active manner.

Man’s place is part of the changing dynamic within the framework of the dialogue.

        Place is in the dynamic movement of the changing experience of life, never still, always flowing. Experience is a sort of sharpening of the consciousness at the particular moment of gaining experience and leading to the experience. In Star of Redemption, from the beginning, the experience of the senses was placed prior to all the facts of the actual experience “…experience knows nothing…it remembers experiences” (Naharayim 227). We find in the dynamic movement a motion of the actual subject toward the surroundings, and not a transfer of the surroundings to the domain of life. The place of man is woven and consolidated by movement to the surroundings, and the more he leaves the surroundings in their physical place, the more he tends towards its ideal direction: “In the old philosophy, ‘thinking’ means thinking for no one else and speaking to no one else…but ‘speaking’ means speaking to some one and thinking for some one” (Naharayim 231). In the old philosophy, physical place means to think for no man and to speak for no man. Thus there is no movement, no physical movement; everything is silent and standing. There is no partner and there is no experiential, eventful activity of reaction; there is only thought which calculates the power of relationship in the physical place of ideal direction.

        The experience forms the place of man since it is located in surroundings, as it is in life. Man’s place is individual and occurs within the surroundings; man’s place is a personal place. For to speak means to speak to someone (personally) and to think about something (in a personal manner). Man’s place changes and renews

itself constantly since this place is linked inexorably to time. Since the existential experience constantly renews the place of man (Naharayim 233; Star 148), the existential is not a one-time phenomenon, but a process which continues and does not cease within man. It acts in him and moves him to redeem the world, all of humanity (Naharayim 230), and man merits, by means of the occurrence of the existential present, “relation of the Almighty, for “to know God-world-man means what they do or was done to them in these times of reality…” (Naharayim 230). Man’s place as part of dynamic movement is found also in the philosophy of Abraham J. Heschel. Heschel’s philosophy of religion is also based on the living and dynamic relationship between God and man. In his book, God in Search of Man, revelation is the dialogue in which the prophet is the dynamic facet and biblical scriptures are an echo both of revelation and the response to it (Friedman, “The Philosophy of Heschel” 2:400-426).

        In order for this dynamic to occur, the place of man must be within the framework of dialogue, which requires him to use the word “you,” which is second person singular used in time present. Reality in its complete meaning is acquired only by dialogue with another, whose identity or identities will be made clear below. Man commences dialogue only when hearing others calling to him by name, such as “I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine” (Isa. 43:1; Star 214), and he answers—he is born anew. In the proper name, man is born again, for he is of the moment, “it is of its own category,” and therefore the birth of his name is renewed always in the midpoint of the world “in the beginning of time” (Star 218). “The lover who says ‘Thou art mine’ to the beloved is aware of having begotten the beloved in his love and given birth to her in travail” (Star 215).  The call by name is accompanied by “you are mine,” in which man recalls his status in the universe on the basis of his place (Star 207). This dialogue is as simple as it sounds—speech or conversation employing all the facets of living language. Does not “man” (“Adam”) in gematria equal “what” (“mah”)? And “what” (in Hebrew) is one of the words of the question. The living dialogue is based on question and response.

        The experience of the call by name is dramatized by Rosenzweig’s experience upon returning to Judaism on Yom Kippur 1913 at the synagogue on Potsdam Bridge in Berlin. It appears that Rosenzweig heard God call him by name. A communication (Beziehung) was made there with God (Briefe 263). Rosenzweig explains his comprehension of the dialogue by quoting a Biblical story (Star 207-208). When God called Adam after his sin, there was a call but no response. Adam was ashamed; he feared responsibility for his past and his sin. Therefore, when God asked, “Where are you?” his intention was “where is your ‘you’”? His interest was not to understand via his understanding the “you” but only to understand the “you” (see Pardes HaHasidut 63). This question certainly does not seek to clarify the place of man, since God surely knows where he is located. To the question of how it can be that the Almighty asks man “Where are You?” Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Ladi responded that whenever God calls to man “Where are You”? he means where are you in the world? To where have you arrived in the world? God seeks the man who conceals himself and calls and asks where he is. The above response is not a substantive answer but rather castigates man vis-à-vis his way of life. Rabbi Schneur Zalman charged that man lives irresponsibly and without introspection. Adam hid in order to evade giving an account and avoid responsibility; by hiding from God he became entangled in the depths of the illusion of that which followed, and found himself in a new situation which worsened as he moved from one hiding place to the next. The question, “Where are You?” rattles man, destroys the wall of his hiding place and seeks to show him where he has arrived and give him strength to free himself from the entanglement. Man confesses: “I heard your voice in the garden and hid,” and with this, man’s path commences.¹¹

        But man was not willing to stand in the presence of God. He hid, made excuses, blamed another—“the woman whom you gave me.” Eve did not succeed in that which Adam failed, and she passed the blame to the serpent (Star 208). The dialogue is a process “from real word to real word” (Star 207). Each side was active. This dialogue was a real dialogue, each side speaking freely. The call “you” directed at Adam requires a response from man. In calling Adam by his first name, God raises the human “you” testified to by the “here I am” of the answer: “‘Where are Thou?’ This is none other than the quest for the Thou…By the very act of asking for the ‘Thou’, by the ‘Where’ of this question, which testifies to its belief in the existence of the ‘Thou’ even without the ‘Thou’s’ coming into its purview, the ‘I’ addresses and expresses itself as ‘I’. The ‘I’ discovers itself at the moment when it asserts the existence of the ‘Thou’ by inquiring into its Where” (Star 207). “God called me, and therefore here I am” (Star 208); within the dependence in saying the absolute ‘you’ was a justified dependence on objects as well as his human “you.” The dialogue with man is a quintessential dialogue,  and in comparison to it all other possible utterances and answers need be seen as decreed.

        Answering the call to the personal “you” indicates the beginning of the experience of man. The presence of the “you” of God created his “I”: “It must be that what we heard in our ‘I’ was living utterance, and we were answered from our ‘you’.” “The true dialectic is not the discourse of the philosopher alone but a dialogue between the ‘I’ and the ‘you’” (Naharayim 232).  The concrete ‘I’ is

only the “I” against which is positioned the “you,” and it itself is “you,” object, vis-à-vis another “I.” In regard to the wise, idealistic “I,” there is no “you,” just as the “you” does not exist with regard to any object.¹⁴  My “I” is effectuated in the “you”; by saying “you” I understand the other person not as “a thing” but an “I” like me”: “…this man says: I, such that if man is not B alone but B=B can say I…”  (Naharayim 210). In Rosenzweig’s exegesis of the scriptures, He who calls out becomes One who hears. That God spoke actually to the people of Israel, and the people answered, reflects the efforts of Rosenzweig to understand anew the dialogue. These efforts are expressed in particular in Buber’s I and Thou (B’sod Siach, 57-103). The I-Thou dialogue, according to Buber, is the path to understanding the connection between man and his creator. Rosenzweig’s thought is similar – the world, in all its actions, is God speaking to man. Man’s history is nothing other than signs, large and small, of the word spoken to him. The entire history of the world is only a dialogue between the creator and the creation, in which man is the veritable party who is entitled and empowered to speak and hear his word.

        Use of this name requires man’s communication to be immediate, current and reciprocal. The dialogue’s attribute is questions and answers at speaking tempo; without it, the opportunity is lost for oral reaction and dialogue. Without reaction, there is no action, nor a dynamic, harmonious, continuous, and communicative result. Dialogue does occur when “you” is utilized. The immediacy of the reaction tempo gives the communication a living and dynamic, rather than a static, character. The name “you” indicates that a reaction is taking place between persons speaking and the present “now.”

Summery

This article discusses the reasons Franz Rosenzweig, an influential Jewish theologian in prewar Germany, rejected the intellectual approach seeking to understand man as an object of the intellect. In establishing that the nature of man in the God-man-world relationship is one of inclusivity or unity, Rosenzweig provides an antidote to the futility of existence, and an answer for the fear of death. The article presents discourse on the critical concepts that support Rosenzweig’s existential philosophy. Topics include the nature of reality, the meaning of time, the ‘I’, the intellect, and self immanence, referencing contrasting views from Kant, Heidegger, Hegel, Newton, and, of course, Rosenzweig.

¹ See F. Rosenzweig, Understanding the Sick and the Healthy: A View of the World, Man and God. This small book represents the anti-intellectual position. See also Rosenzweig in his article “The New Thinking,” notes to Star of Redemption, where he notes “Copernicus pronounced man a mode of dust in the vast universe. Kant’s own ‘Copernican turn of thought,’ which—to restore the equilibrium—sets man on the throne of that same universe, corresponds to the mote-of-dust idea more precisely than he himself realized” (204).

² See Chapter 1 of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, which discussed “Dasein’s possibility of being a whole, and being towards death” (262-263).

³ Truth of multiplicity means: “…until the unbeliever in this dogma chooses to found his experiences of his world – on the world, his experiences – on God…” (Naharayim 223).

⁴ This idea of man as the lord of creation is expressed in the following sources. Talmud, Tractate Hagigah, 12B: “…On what does the earth stand? On pillars, as it is said, ‘Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble’ (Job 9:6).…Rabbi Eliezer ben Shamuah says, ‘on one pillar, and just man is its name, for it is said: but the righteous is an everlasting foundation’” (Prov. 10:25). See also Tractate Sanhedrin 37A: “Therefore man was born singularly, to teach you that one who loses one soul of Israel is considered as having lost an entire world, and one who establishes one soul of Israel is considered as having created an entire world.” Man’s important place is also taught, in a comparison between the big world and man as a small world, a microcosm, which appears frequently in rabbinical literature, and in which man is elevated to the level of world crown. See also Avot deRebbi Natan, Chapter 31, in particular “Sefer Yetsira,” and the philosophical literature which preceded Mimonides, in particular Yosef ben Yaacov Even-Zadik (1075-1149), Olam Katan [Mikrokosmos], translated by Rabbi Moshe ben Rabbi Shmuel Ibn Tibon (Lifsia, 1854). See Klazkin, Thesaurus Philosophicus 1:34-37 and 2:126-127. See also Naharayim 237.

⁵ See also Franz Rosenzweig, Briefe 718.

⁶ Kant, A Critique of Pure Reason. See also Bergman’s essay “The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant” in Toldot haPhilosophia haHadasha; Rosenzweig’s comments on Kant in Naharayim 221.

⁷ Action = Zeitwort, whose source is in the word time (Zeit). In German, the word Zeit forms the basis for many common words, such as Zeitgenosse (contemporary), Zeitlauf (time spent), Zeitfolge (chronological order), and Zeitung (newspaper).

⁸ Kant, Prolegomena; Yuval, Kant and the Religious Question; Bergman, Toldot ha-filosofyah ha-hadashah.

⁹ Heidegger, Being and Time 383-440, 456-486. See also Sein und Zeit 334-349. Compare Marck 1:155-160.

¹⁰ The distance of four handbreadths is the minimal distance set forth by the Rabbinical Sages in various matters. See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Brachot 25B and 33B.

¹¹ M. Buber, Pardes HaHasidut, 63.

¹² See references below relating to the discussion of “Absolute empiricism.”

LIST OF SOURCE MATERIAL ABBREVIATIONS

דף הבית

God always loves only whom and what he loves, but his love is distinguished from an "all-love" only by a Not-Yet: apart from what he already loves, God loves everything, only not yet.  His love roams the world with an ever-fresh drive. It is always and wholly of today, but all the dead past and future will one day be devoured in this victorious today.  This love is the eternal victory over death.

______________________________________________________________

Franz Rosenzweig, Star 165

The article will discuss the prior conditions to the occurrence of the meeting between man and God. Several conditions must be fulfilled before man can meet with God: a) Only the gifted man meets with God. He must ear the meeting with god through arduous intellectual and spiritual study and discipline; b) The skilled man cannot yet meet God because he expects redemption from God. The second prerequisite for the meeting is the commandment to love God, after which God can then respond; c) The dialogue begins with the confession of man, which occurs because man thinks it will be to his advantage. He believes that God can forgive him. This hoped-for redemption is build upon a prerequisite of faith. The main purpose of the confession is in the faith that the confession man has in God; otherwise, he would not be confessing before him at all.

INTRODUCTION

God is concealed behind His own creations and His laws.

Rosenzweig noted that God hides behind His creation and His laws, thereby keeping man from knowing the purpose of His rules and actions.  He gives man obstacles to recognizing Him.  This makes for a complex and fascinating relationship.

            Prior to the act of creation, God was a hidden, silent God who related to neither man nor the world.  This God served idolatry as an assumption fixed in structure and form.  Therefore, Rosenzweig states, "God was not given the significance of the God of truth but rather of false gods" (Naharayim 239).

With the act of creation, God begins to be revealed, a "beginning of knowledge" (Star 173).  But the "beginning of knowledge," according to Rosenzweig, is not knowledge of the purpose of His acts and laws, for "silence is praise unto Thee" (Ps. 65:2), "for there is not a word in my tongue" (Ps. 139:4), "truly my soul waiteth upon God" (Ps. 62:2), "but is knowledge of his love for man which fills man's soul with certainty and as to a soul which is loved.  Thus, "we know about everything but not in the same degree" (Star 212-213, Naharayim 224).

"God created, that is the novelty.  The nut, as it were, was broken.  What we knew of God before this was of a hidden God, who hid himself and his life within his mythic sphere, in a fortress… this God, of which we knew what we knew, ceased to exist.  The God of creation is the beginning" (Star 199)…  "A beginning of knowledge without bringing everything to a conclusion in it" (Star 199, 173).

Maimonides, in The Guide to the Perplexed, explains why man is limited in knowing the purpose of the laws and acts of God.  Knowing about God, Maimonides states, is knowing that you know nothing about Him.  Events should not be attributed to God, for that is the way of nature, amplifying the simple Godly essence, turning a subject to subjects or events; amplifying His attributes amplifies God's essence.  We draw the attributes from human experience, and there is no comparison between the creator and the created.  Yet, Maimonides attributes to God, following Rabbenu Bahchia's definition (Havot HaLevovot Ch. 6), action, and he endeavors to prove that these attributes of action do not comprise amplification.  Also, he permits negative attributes, which God does not possess, for behind the negative lies a positive perfection, the same attributes on a higher form.

In Chapter 70, explaining the word "chariot," Maimonides states:  "As the rider rests on the chariot, separated and outside, so is God outside the world, separated and above it.  And just as the rider uses the animal as the tool and moves it, so does God activate the upper sphere… and by his hand turns the entire world, and the upper sphere is nothing but God's tool, for He causes the whole world to move, moving with the movement of the upper sphere, which surrounds the entire world, activated by God."2  "Master of the Universe, Who reigned before any form was created… will reign alone."3  Rosenzweig strengthens the explanation of Maimonides:  "Even by the recognized cunning knowledge of thought, we can comprehend nothing more in God…" (Naharayim 225).

God hides behind His creations and His laws and thereby safeguards the knowledge of the purpose of His laws and acts.  Man, therefore, finds it difficult to recognize Him, making the relationship complex and wonderful.  But Rosenzweig does not keep man bewildered by the booming silence as does Martin Heidegger.  Rather, he opens for man the "beginning of knowledge" deep in man in order to know God.  Heidegger maintains that you have no choice but to live, though the single reason for your living is to run towards the possibility of death (Vorlaufen in die Moglichkeit des Todes").  Man dies because he knows of his death, and he lives within that consciousness.  Therefore, our existence is existence towards death, in his words: "eigententliches sein zum Tode."  Contrary to Rosenzweig, who attempts to disclose to man the ideal solution to the fear of death and cessation in the love of God, Heidegger's thought plumbs the depths of death, according to Heidegger, is in man's being concentrated in it and not in his deviating from this reality.  The entire validity and significance of the possibility of death, according to Heidegger, is in man's being concentrated in it and not in his deviating from this reality, towards God, as Rosenzweig holds.  Our existence is a race (Vorlaufen), whose purpose is death; existence is tragic and fearful.  At the moment we are born we receive the death sentence; there is no alternative.  The fact that we now live and exist means that we shall die sooner or later.  And where were we before birth?  Where shall we go after death?  Heidegger answers simply since we see the vision of all this in existence, since it is before it and after it, that is, before birth and after death, with us, there is nothing (Being 296).  We live by chance, at a time and place not chosen by us (Being 345).

This knowledge or "beginning of knowledge" draws universal significance from the fact that it is neither rational nor theoretical.  It does not relate to the reality of God or to his laws. It is knowledge that does not know it: For God is above all knowledge, definition and likeness; nevertheless, there is nothing more certain than the knowledge of God, a fact which makes the relationship wonderful and concrete (Naharayim 223-224,239).

    This important point will be elaborated in the discussion  on faith in the chapter dealing with man's meeting with God. In that chapter, I shall attempt to explain the paradox of a hidden but revealed God. "The beginning of knowledge" is God revealing Himself but also hiding his essence, i.e., the purpose of his laws and acts. Rosenzweig states this clearly: "The subject matter of art two of The Star of Redemption is to show how and when the distant God approaches, and how and when the nearby God is made distant" (Naharayim 228).

    Thus, man can meet with God, though God hides behind the creation and its laws in order to test mankind and to distinguish between them It is as if God hides from man the way He governs and acts and makes it difficult for an to recognize Him in order that man can believe in Him and freely and willingly deposit himself in God's hand.

Man alone is responsible for the prior conditions.

   Several conditions must occur before man can meet with God and man alone is responsible for realizing these conditions. He, man, determines if the meeting will ever occur.

   Man's desire and ability is given special attention by Rosenzweig in his explanation of the commandments in his article "The Builders": "Not on our will but on our ability does the matter hinge.." (Naharayim 88; compare Sacred Fragments 183). The ground-tone of man's ability underlies his entire Jewish perception and certainly his approach to the experience of the meeting between man and his God..

   Man's wanting to meet God does not insure his accomplishing His will. "The principal element is that through his ability, that will be done what he will do.." Similarly, "...it is not for our will or our knowledge to overcome our ability for it, and only it, chooses" (Naharayim 89). This choice of Rosenzweig results from freedom. Freedom is one of the central elements of existential philosophy. Will and ability are products of freedom in existentialist thought in distinction from Idealism, which places freedom in the creative spirit of man and Rationalism which bases it on the intellectual consciousness of the world. The existentialist wants to acquire for man and freedom designed for God

According to this theory, free man is a creature composed of good and bad, truth and falsehood. He alone gives significance to the world and reason to existence. He condemns or negates the world and proclaims its negation and insignificance. Man alone can pass judgment on that which is existing and found in the world. According to Sartre, man did not attain his freedom from external factors; man is free by nature. Freedom is a weighty decree which man cannot nullify. He has no choice but to be  free (see L'Existentialism 64). Death alone releases him from freedom. Man is its prisoner as long as he lives and nothing during man's life can remove it from him (L'Etre 77). In man, the

chosen ability determines what will be done without involving the will. Therefore, whether the meeting occurs depends on this ability, which rests in the soul of man. This soul includes defiance, pride and humility.

   Rosenzweig explains the combination of these constituent elements in the soul: "...it (pride) now becomes the first to emerge from the interior of the self to the exterior...The defiant pride of free will had amalgamated the existing character into a self" (Star 200). Rosenzweig explains that several of the forces which make man silently independent are revolt and imagination. Revolt: rebelliousness, conduct which repulses the decree of one who commands disobedience as in the incident of Adam and Eve.

 prime marks of recognition of existentialism: man bears responsibility always, even when he does not know why. The concept of responsibility fills an honored role in the existentialist philosophy of Sartre, Heidegger and others. We

are responsible because of the freedom engulfed in us. We are responsible for everything other than responsibility itself since we are the reason for our existence. We are abandoned in the world, forced to bear the yoke of

responsibility without being able or having the possibility of being freed of it. We are responsible even for the lack of exercising responsibility. One who flees from responsibility flees because he chooses to. Heidegger maintains that

the need to emerge from isolation is the push which frees one from the concrete responsibility of free choice, individually, from the knowing silence of man in his private world (Being 127; L'Etre641).

   Rosenzweig's allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs clarifies in a more concrete manner how man is responsible and determines whether a meeting with God will occur. In the beginning, man cannot meet God, nor does he desire the meeting: "I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on?" (Song 5:3). Man is unable. He understands well, possibly in his sub-conscious, that opening the door is likely to raise many obligations and responsibilities and even a change in his way of life. This cognition frightens him, and he manufactures reasons not to open the door, such as: "I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?" (Song 5:3).

   Eventually, he decides to meet God, but he is not certain that he can do it: "I shall rise please" (Song 3:6). This man cannot sleep; he rises from his bed and takes the initiative: "I shall go to town, to the market and streets--I seek that which loved my sol" (Song 3:2). He sought love in every place and corner, requested it but did not find it. "We found the guards who wander throughout town -- did you see that which loved my soul? (Song 3:3). He does not give up, but he gathers his strength and continues to search, following up every possibility.

   The soul did not yet take full advantage of its potential. It wants very much and does what it can to fulfill its goal, and its hour arrives. "I almost passed it until I found that which loved my soul! I grasped it and did not let it go until they brought it to the house of my mother and my parent's room" (Song 3:4). That is success! A success which required all of a soul's ability too meet that which loved his soul, everything being dependent on him alone, only on the eternal ability and the individual, enormous efforts of man..

   Man determining the meeting is not sagacious; rather, he is naive, like a person unashamed, unfrustrated, uncalculating and without mental obstructions This is the man who God loves. The New Zohar states: "God said to man, until now I had tried by toil, from here on, you will" (Gen. 5). God tried by the toil of choosing to love man to a certain point, from there on many must desire it to the extent of his ability, and only by this pure ability will he attain God and build his personal path, for "The end of all the sons is to be builders" (Naharayim 89). So Rosenzweig asserts, and he brings the Talmudic Brachot 64a saying: "Don't read 'your sons'6 (in Hebrew - "Bonayich") but 'your builders'" ("Bonayich") (Naharayim 90). So, too, man will determine in his way the manner and form of the meeting with his God, a determination containing the spirit

of spontaneous Hasidism. The Hasidic movement was referred to as the "insurrection of the common people." The mutiny rebelled against the strict values of the Yeshiva students (Beth Y'Israel 77--85; Ashcoli 86-93). This perception was explained in Rosenzweig's letters in the arable of the landscape and the road. At the time of the completion of the Talmud, Judaism had one common path. There were also small paths and alleys and bridges, but essentially there was  one road, one Jewish tradition. This road has not existed for 150 years6 "Ye are the children of the Lord your God" (Deut. 14:2). Compare Avot3A and Isa. 54:13: "And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of the children Though the path of pious Judaism remains, it ceased to be the primary way. At the most, it is one of many paths. There remains only the one common landscape, which is the aspiration for the reign of the commandments. Possibly,

there will again be one path, or a network of paths leading in one direction, but that time has not yet come, and we can only guess what will bring it to us. Each and every one of us must pave his particular road and prepare it for

future generations. Each day each of us does his own Shulhan Aruch, his own way of life (Briefe 426). Being made in the image of God, man must adapt his way; like God, man, too, must toil and cooperate with God in bringing about the meeting with Him. ("..to simulate the acts of God,"  which summarizes his break book, Morei Nevuchim) And "if he did, he is blessed, and if not, he is not (yet) blessed." (Ps. Midrash on chapter 53).

                                   THE CONDITIONS

A. The Exclusive Characteristics

Only the gifted meet God

   He must learn the meeting with God through arduous intellectual and spiritual study and discipline.

   Exclusivity is a prior condition of the revelation of God. If this condition is fulfilled along with the other conditions, there is a possibility that God will be revealed. To Rosenzweig, exclusivity means genius of the genius or, phrased

differently, the gift of the gifted (Star 23). This exclusivity is explained using the example f art, which prepared man for the meeting with his God:

   If there were no cobblers, men would walk barefoot, but they would still

   walk. But if there were no artists, mankind would be a cripple. For then it

   would lack that language prior to revelation whose existence alone makes it

   possible for revelation one day to enter time as a historical revelation and

   there to prove itself something that has already been from of aye. (Star     

   221)

This exclusivity is also a property of prophecy, which also has prior conditions that enable the prophet to communicate with his God. But there is a substantial qualitative difference between prophecy and revelation as Rosenzweig

knows it. It is true that prophecy comes from the word "to prophesy," a thing (utterance of the lips) which is a sort of conversation as revelation shows, yet there are any differences.  Only Moses merited speaking with God without an

angel as intermediary, as it is said "mouth to mouth I shall speak.."(Num. 12:8) and "God spoke to Moses face to face" (Exo. 33:11) "and the similitude of the Lord shall be behold" (Num. 12:8), meaning that it is not parable but he

sees completely and without enigma. The other prophets see in dreams, in night visions and in the daytime when they slumber ["in a vision to him I shall make myself known, in a dream I shall speak.."(Num. 12:6)] The prophet

perceives via parable, and immediately solves the arable in a vision of prophecy and knows what it is. An example is the seething vessel and almond stick that Jeremiah saw (Jer. 1:11,13). In revelation, everyone can speak with God

when his time comes. The prophet does not mediate between God and man, he does not receive revelation in order to pass it on; rather, the voice of God sounds forth directly from within Him, God speaks as "I" directly from within

Him" (Compare, Star 210). Prophecy is designed to mend society. Elijah the prophet and the students of Elisha acted to distance the people from the false god and bring them to serve God and obey the Torah. They show Ahab the

path he should follow in order to vanquish his enemies.

   Revelation primarily comes to transform the individual in the bountifulness of the love of the Creator and only thereafter does redemption of the world follow, though on a different plane and manner than that of prophecy. Revelation

as seen by Rosenzweig is not an adjustment of the people enthralled from the beginning by idolatry, but is for man as individual, to adjust this soul and grant him certainty--love, God and the closeness of God.

   Prophecy obfuscates the lucidity of man-his thoughts are ravaged, as it is said of Abraham: "And fear and darkness fall on him" (Gen. 15:12). In revelation, man's mind is clear; he hears God and answers the command of his love

like man speaking to man. Most of the prophets were not particularly excited about bringing the word of God to their people. On the contrary, the prophets fought with the spirit of prophecy which rose and were vanquished by it

against their will. Often, the  prophets became wretched because of it, Jeremiah among them. Revelation, though, is a great benefit to man in which God flooded the soul of many with love of the security f support, and the soul s

blissful in gaining the love of the lover. "Prophecy is found only in a sagacious, heroic and distinguished erson."8 Maimonides quotes this Talmudic saying to teach that there is a need for perfection in attributes and learning.

8 Moshe ben Maimon, Morei Nevuchim, ed. Shmuel Ibn Tibon,  Pt. 2, Ch. 32 and 45.

   Only the skilled or gifted meet God. The meeting is not intended for all mankind, but for the individual, not for everybody, and not to everybody equally, but to those whom God arbitrarily chooses: "For God will always love him and

that which He loves.."  (Star 221, 197-198) This arbitrariness does not result from pressure or force of the tendency to proclaim himself. "The love of God loves who it will love and wherever it will love.. no permission is given for any

question to be asked, since questions often receive answers, for he, the questioner who imagines that God's love abandoned him, will be loved by God" (Star 197).

   The "gift of the gifted" ultimately comes to everyone. Thus, Rosenzweig instructs us that God's love is acquired in the course of time, and it will come in time to everybody. We are upset by the "muscle display" of this love at the

meeting of man and God, which muscularity chooses the gifted before others. Rosenzweig responds: you have no right to ask questions,, your turn will also come. Today you feel ignored and abandoned, but God will love you also.

During the course of eternity, then, each and every one of us will attain the gifted status and subsequently God's love because "love is nothing but God 'not yet' loving everybody except for those whom he already loves" (Star 197-198).

   In effect, Rosenzweig does not provide a recipe to instruct one how to become one of the happy-chosen of God who has gained God's love. He only says to us 'not yet'. Each person at some time in his life can meet God,

experiencing pure love, "for man comes from God, and his end is with God" (Naharayim 147-148).

   Being "gifted" is a process created in man's life by the choice of God with the steadfast effort of the chosen. "The genius is not born a genius..." (Star 223). The gifted, chosen by God individually must gain the meeting with God, "for

no existing genius is stopped..(for) when the genius awakens, the opus (the artistic creation) too begins to appear" (Star 223). The gifted must try to endeavor to improve by means of spiritual and mental studies and discipline:"...(the

gifted must) improve himself...for man is not ready, he neither sees nor hears; how will he attain God's love?" (Star 200).

   Man's closed world, a property of the creation of man, states Rosenzweig, must be opened initially in order that he hear the word of God and see the brightness of his light (Star 187,200). Mentioning the verb "study," Rosenzweig

suggests that learning results from mental and spiritual studies. 9 The source of hearing of the word of God is through an internal mental-spiritual process and not via a mechanical act, physical as it may be. The gifted, being a chosen

gifted, des not complete his toil; he is only beginning the task for which he was chosen: the meeting with God. "God said to man, until now I had tried by toil, from here on, you will" (Zohar, Gen. 5:).

9 The perfection related to is related to understanding the pure essence of God, but instead is a means (and not an explanation) of arriving at the meeting with God.

  Rosenzweig believes that the gifted person must improve himself before receiving the love of God. But in what way or manner can man reach the goal set for him--the meeting with God? Because man, the fruit of the period of

creation, of the act, "is made"; "mythic man, is man belonging to the language of the indicative, the one sided-monologue. He is an introvert, and cannot yet open his mouth; he fears that God will not respond with his love to his

confession. But can this state of introversion show signs of life at the coming of come communication with God? In any event, Rosenzweig is of the opinion that this situation must be resolved by the act of opening his closed heart in

order that man "learn" to hear the word of God and see the brightness of his light" (Star 200).

The function of art in preparing mankind to meet with God.

   Rosenzweig attempts to answer the question by pointing to art's role in preparing mankind for revelation, the meeting of man with God. Without the artist, mankind was defective, lacking pre-revelation speech whose reality alone

allows the time-historic revelation.

   Revelation does not originate in the concept of creation; rather they are coeval. For Rosenzweig, revelation occurs unaided as in creation, emerging from the pre-aesthetic layer, private, individualistic, sleeping in man. "When the

genius awakens, the opus (the artistic creation) too begins to appear" (Star 223). In other words, the completed artistic creation assumes a process of alienation of man from himself when that human wholeness foregoes itself in

favor of a something (upon the arrival of the image of God in man who now stands opposite) which it itself does not consider to have proceeded from within it, but which it appears to confront and to inspire with life and spirit by giving

itself away to it" (Star 223).

   Genius and opus (the artistic creation) have a common source, but the difference is that the soul of the opus is an enormous, magnificent revelation, completed forever. In creation, man is silent, lacking a voice to respond, and

revelation ends his slumber. Man responds with a reply of confession. n the act "let us create man in our image, after our likeness.." (Gen. 1:26, God made man supreme by favoring him, turning man into a being of enormous

potential, with a sense of conscious spirit, self-determination and self-criticism, talented and powerful; his position was only slightly lower than that of God (Ps 8:6).

   "Image is not a facial expression, but a semblance of the acts of God. As God knows and understands, so, too, does man, whom He gave wisdom to know and feel His love, and as God supplies food for all, so man loves, feeds his

family, servants and animals, and as the creator built the world and planted and founded the terrestrial portions and the seas, so, too, man can build, plant, found and create. These traits, indicates Rabbi Donolo Shabtai Ben Avraham,

(9130982) in his work "The meaning of man is created in out image" [perush naaseh adam b'tzalmenu]" at page 8, signify truly the biblical phrase that man is created in the image of God. 10

10 See, also, The New Zohar, Gen. 5; Rabbi Ovadish Sforno (1475-1550) on Gen. 1:27.

   Rosenzweig reminds us that the origin of the material which became inspired, the image in dynamic activity, comes from the "whole man" (Naharayim 215) of "absolute empiricism" the man who is able to experience the absolute

God, his final self and the world. Although whole man is also absolute, this absoluteness does not cause him to be swallowed up without God's end being achieved, i. e. in his opus, the meeting with God.

   Each side maintains its special character, and each speaks freely. The opus or "the image" arouses the love of man. As creator, the images rise from him, via freedom's path, to space. Along the way, man raises his image,

containing the divine, to the space of his soul - his internal world. The genius governs the images that rose from within him, for God already chose him, and he will not abandon his chosen: "..for no existing genius is stopped...(for)

when the genius awakes, the opus too begins to appear (Star 223).

  The creator is engulfed in love, which penetrates freely due to the knowledge and inspiration of that which is within ('his image'). A strengthening of the character of the personality occurs with the expression of the opus. Art,

narrowly defined as the ability to create, does not arise from the wealth of the creative reality. In addition, perseverance is required; in Rosenzweig's words, diligence and observation are understood as mental, internal, spiritual

perfection attained through study. Rosenzweig notes that "whoever relies solely on the former (inspiration) and expects everything from it is liable to experience what befell the young Spitteler, who did not dare to carry out the

concept of his first opus for a full decade because he thought that had to come 'by itself' just like the conception" (Star 224).

   When Rosenzweig states "..when the genius awakes, the opus too begins to appear..", the meaning of awakes is this: the beginning of all diligence. Diligence is dedication of the genius burning with self-sacrifice, altering the man in

him from pre-opus (the whole, pre-aesthetic) to that of creator. He must immerse himself in that lonely detail resting before him, for only the toil of shaping, the "toil of love" of freshness brings the creator to inner self-consciousness

- the art in inspiration (Star 224). This awareness testifies to his dynamic existence, his genius as well as the act of creation.

   Rosenzweig uses terms and examples from the world of artistic literature to teach the reader. Rosenzweig was influenced by stories of the gods, heroic poetry, that formed the basis for creative works through the generations, such

as the Iliad and Odyssey. The lyric quality of opening the soul, and in Rosenzweig's case, disclosing the soul, is characteristic of artistic literature of feeling and experiences of the artist.

   The artistic act is not technical execution of the picture created in his vision, but a primary process no less than the vision of the picture itself. The picture of the "model" is formed in the soul of the genius and from this soul the

inspired picture arises. Rosenzweig refers to this as the most living revelation of God, and emphasizes that this process requires diligent study. In this regard, Mahnonides writes in the Mishneh Torah. 11

11 Laws of the Foundation of the Torah, chapter 2, law 1.

   What is the way to love and fear? When man will observe in his acts and           

   wonderful, enormous creations and see in them his wisdom that cannot be           

   measured and has no end, he will immediately love and honor and adorn and    

   long a great longing to know the great God..

 Both Maimonides and Rosenzweig point out that man must observe to realize the love of God, but Rosenzweig went further in presenting a meeting of man with his God as present, what Maimonides did not dare do, for, according to

Maimonides, prophecy (revelation of God to Man) requires a natural talent and specific preparation, each of which Moses possessed. Not everyone can attain the perfection of Moses (see The Guide 2:36).

  Rosenzweig writes that the act of observation deepens with the basic phenomena of the cosmos which surrounds "the model" of the artist (Star 226). Observation brought Abraham to recognize the Creator, though not yet to meet

him. The path of Abraham the artist are similar; each uses mental observation to attain closeness with God. This process is continuous and epic, the continuousness being called diligent observation (perseverance) by Rosenzweig.

Continuousness is the requisite condition for the study of any art, as anyone who attempted to study art at some time n his life well knows. Since steadfastness and continuing observation and concentration are not common in our

culture, Rosenzweig believes that only few have this trait, which results, as stated above, in the individual's meeting with "the model" of his work (Star 224). Indeed, without discipline, man cannot wait until "awakening the rejoicing of

lice" (Star 223).

  In his article "New Thinking," Rosenzweig emphasizes that man must study until his hour of readiness arrives (Naharayim 229. Preparation of the gifted for the meeting with God is not granted as an act of grace. Belief is not an act

of grace, and the gifted does not come to believe because of this grace. The artist constructs his framework of observation during the course of lyric and epic time, and he is not born with an advantage of belief.

  According to Rosenzweig, man does not start to learn art directly or via a simple program, in particular since the goal is a picture which he cannot touch and feel; instead, the study is indirect, as it were, by "dealing with matters of

content in their sweeping exposition, and it is not for nothing that one speaks of 'epic scope'.. Man must learn many other things - and frequently things which do not seem relevant, prior to commencing study of observation,

concentration and discipline and the precision of art. "But content is not meant as something antedating the opus; on the contrary, it is only that which is all contained within the work itself. (Star 223).

  The artist is not born an artist, or is the genius born a genius, nor is the poet born with feelings and experiences of poetic effusions of sentient experiences. Discipline is necessary for the artist to create a living  picture. When

Michelangelo completed his sculpture of Moses, he hit it with a hammer, demanding that it speak; the creation became real and living. The crack in Moses's leg remains today for us to see (Lapid's Guide 65).

  The discipline required is not limited to a  specific artistic activity (however many hours a day it is performed), but of discipline in the entirety of the individual's life, twenty-four hours a day. The absence of discipline in one's life

results in an absence of observation and concentration, and man is thus unable to see any order or hope in involving himself with his surrounds. self-sacrifice for the sake of "aesthetic inspiration) (Star 222) is most difficult, and the

average person cannot acquire the requisite patience, observation and concentration. Contemporary man today, created in God's image, thinks that he loses something - time - if he does not do something quickly, yet he does not

know what to do in the free time given him.

  "But as artist, it [genius] must sacrifice itself to them (the external figures], passionately unmindful of self. Genius must renounce its integrity precisely for the sake of that which it is and which it seeks to become, namely: "originator"

(Star 222-224). If art is not a matter of substantial importance, the student will ever study it. At best, he will be an exceptional amateur, but he will not be an artist. Self-sacrifice demands the dedication and strictness the artist invests

in order to create the picture".. only so that he will cease to see it" (Star 222). Cease to see the erroneous "impression of nature" in order to make room for the sparkle of the vision which, according to Rosenzweig, is living and

stands before him - inspiration. Therefore, the genius is "self-dedication of the genius.." (Star 224).

  One who seeks to be drenched in the solitariness of concentration and observation knows the difficulty of attaining it. He will begin to feel uneasy, nervous and anxious. 12 In using art as a preface to revelation, Rosenzweig seeks to

convince the reader that all the efforts of his love are bound for failure, if he will not attempt with all his power to develop his entire personality to the extend of an artist skilled and gifted, who combines the aesthetic art, the plastic

art of the lyrical, the epic and music (Star 221-229).

12 See James Hewitt, Nature's Way with Tension, See also Lundberg, G., Human Values Research.

  Art thus becomes a special category of the world of revealed faith, not in the sense that religious revelatory faith transforms art, but as Fritz Kauffman phrased it: "The relationship between art to religion is realized precisely in that

the aesthetic experience and the aesthetic design can be seen as preliminary levels of the religious position" (Das Reich des Schinen 182).

  Art, being rooted in the mythic picture of the world, is in reality executed in it - emerging from this self-seclusion for the meeting between men. Art will thus be a condition and primary image of revelation. Rosenzweig paves the way

by disclosing the mutual and supportive communication of the mythic 'elements' to the 'track' of revelation. Music's rhythm, for example, helps us to feel the "revelation" of time-flow in a wink:

     This inspiring of the detail is the achievement of harmony. In

     rhythm, the individual moment forms but a mute link in the whole;

     harmony provides it with sound and life at the same time. It makes

     it sonant in the first place and inspires it, giving it pitch, and

     both at once, quite like the revelation which endows the mute self

     with speech and soul at once." (Star 228).

  Every man has the option to wait until God calls him to be gifted. We must not lose hope that our time will come, for we, too, shall gain God's love. However, the man chosen to bear God's love is obligated and required to study long

and hard to ready himself for the lofty goal of meeting with God.

  Art becomes a special category of the world of revelatory belief and its primary image and endeavors to let man emerge from his self-seclusion for the meeting with God and to prepare him for his link with his fellow man. Art is an

image of the uniqueness and foundation of the gifted, an initial condition for the meeting between man and God.

B. The Characteristics of the Command

  The second condition for the meeting is the commandment to love God. When man learns to love God, non-egotistically, God can then respond.

  In order to clarify the second condition, the following table is instructive. It presents the place of the command "you will love" alongside indicative verbs, and emphasizes the resulting significance. It will also assist in our

understanding of Rosenzweig's intentions in his discussion of the meeting between God and man.

Table 1

                               Table of Verbs

 Verb       Tense      Trait       Nexus     Objective     Subjective    Feeling

________________________________________________________________________________

Created      Past     Indicative   Creation       *            -            -

(Gen.1:1)             Impersonal-

                      'that one'

________________________________________________________________________________

Hovers       Present    **         Creation       *            -            -

(Gen.1:2)

________________________________________________________________________________

Let there be  Future    Sudden     Creation       *            -            -

(a)(Gen.1:3) (command)  Command

________________________________________________________________________________

Let us make   Future    Indicative  Creation      -            *            -

(Gen. 1:26)             Monologue

________________________________________________________________________________

You will love  Past     Speaking to  Revelation   -            *          Shame

(Deut.6-5)    (present)  someone                                     uncertainty

                                                                     (the begin-

(God's                                                                ning)

command)                                                                     

(b)_____________________________________________________________________________

I sinned       Past       Dialogue    Revelation   -         *       Faith Total

(c)           (present)  (I & You)    (of God)(d)                    Certainty.

(Ps.2:5)                                                             God exists.

                                                                     Happiness

(response of                                                         (the end)

the soul)                                                             (c)  

Notes to the Table

a) For the first time, among the past and resent tenses and the quiescent indicative comes suddenly the command: "let there be" "Yehi" is the shortened from of "ye'heye" ("). "Vehi mah veyehi ma" (") (2 Sam. 18:23), meaning:

"There will be what there will be," or "what will be, will be."

b) The significance of 'you will love' is inherent in the command or the language of command. The imperative is decreed from the word command, which is an order and decree: "For whereas he obeyed the command" (Hosea 5:11) 

or "He commanded Aaron and his sons" (Lev. 6:2); "As God commanded him, so he did" (Gen. VI, 22). See Even Shushan, 1125.

c) This is the response of the soul to God's command "love me" (Star 209--210). response here means confession. The complete verse is: "I have sinned, I acknowledge to you, and my iniquity I do not hide", meaning I was a sinner

(past); the soul paves the way to the declaration 'I sin' (present) (Star 214).

d) "I sinned" bears significance beyond that of being only confession; there is also acknowledgement of God. "There is in this confession more than confession itself for the sin.. it is already acknowledgement of God.. if you

acknowledge me, I am God" (Star 212). More on this, later in this chapter.

e) Certainty which results from the confirmed reality of revelation: "As if God whispers in the ear of the soul "I forgive', I am yours" (Star 213). This is the end of the command "you will love", man, having come, responded to the

command, passes from shame to happiness, from uncertainty to the total certainty of pure love.

                   Explanation of the Table

   The verbs "created" and "hover" are the first indicative verbs appearing in the Torah. Indicative means announcement, statement story, a sort of declaration of thought. The way of the indicative is the form of the verb in the past,

present and future tenses -- I wrote (in Hebrew ), I write: ( ), he will write ( ,-- as opposed to that of the infinitive -- to write (), to write () or the imperative write (!).

   The function of the indicative is to present an idea or fact whose content does not require a special reason to distinguish it from "an interrogatory", a

"proclamatory sentence" or "conditional sentence." These verbs are objective,, lacking inclination and biased feeling; they are "quiescent", therefore, they are expressed with the meaning and intention of "that one" or one seen from

afar (Star 187). With these verbs, God speaks to Himself. The "impersonal" voice is third person, the ground from which grew the "I" and the "you". The voice of the he-she-it is the voice of the one created: "I called you by name" is

the ground from which sprung "you are mine" or the I-Thou of revelation. It is like a renewed birth, what was already born is born anew as a revealed entity. For, as Rosenzweig writes, "the lover who says 'Thou are mine' to the

beloved is aware of having begotten the beloved in his love...For that which is grounded in a past is, in its presentness too, a visible reality (of the living dialogue of I and Thou), and not merely internal" (see Star 215). Rosenzweig

then defines the he-she-it and I-Thou r "I called you by name" and "You are mine" as "a relationship in the world of things"(Star 215).

   Let there be ("yehi"): For the first time in the Torah, among all the past and present tenses of indicative statements appears, suddenly, the imperative: Let there be. The verb is presented, in Rosenzweig's words, "with the

suddenness of the imperative." "Yehi" is the shortened form of "ye'heye," whih is the future tense, though stated in the manner of the imperative (and therefore, though not in the grammatical sense, it is not indicative; "Yehi is an

objective verb; that is, it is unrelated to personal involvement, and thus is spoken in the impersonal. But with this verb God speaks to Himself. It is impersonal speech of God, but His words re not yet heard, as if someone were

speaking in the "impersonal" and not, he, himself. He does not yet speak himself, his essence does not speak.

  Let us make: For the first time in the Torah, an objective law is breached. And from the mouth which alone speaks, for the first time in creation is heard not the "impersonal" but the first person "I", and even "you" together with the

"I and you." However, here the "I" speaks to himself in the "I" of "Let us make." Rosenzweig states that the verb 'let us make' is not objective. For the first time in the story o creation we hear, not the "impersonal" language, but the

clear and directed language of "I" placed in the future. Yet, God still is speaking to Himself.

  You will love: "Ahav" is the word used in the Torah. "You will love the Almighty, your God, with all you heart and all your soul.." (Deut. 6:5). Instead of "you will love," it could have been "Love me!" The form is pure imperative and

thus the language of I you for the imperative is the grammatical form which always contains both in tandem. Grammatically, the verb "veahavtah" is stated in the past tense, but has the clear meaning of pure present tense, such as

"love me!" at this very moment.

  This command completes what has already commenced. "That which sounded in advance out of that all-embracing, lonely, monologic "let us" of God at the creation of man reaches its fulfillment in the I and You of the imperative of

revelation." We now understand that the verb "veahavtah" has no relationship to the indicative nor to the terminology of objective creation, for it is directed to "you" and not to "that one." Everything belongs to a more advanced stage

of revelation.

  With "veahavtah," God reveals himself to man only as a beginning of the way. And why is there, in this, revelation? Now the subject has a direct case - the nominative rather than the accusative case (Star 137, 210 217). The noun

turns from object to subject and is no longer a thing among things. It is something individual (Das Man), or rather someone individual. The meaning of "Das man" from which results "the independent essence" (*eigenes selbsi, that is,

"being as its experience" ("eigentliches Dasein") is the mode of being of the existentialist. 13

  Rosenzweig calls the level of the imperative a sphere of hearing and absorption only -- God speaks to something; it is only a silent obedience to the demand of love. The soul is prevented from responding to the love. Why? It results

from the uncertainty and doubt of what the response of God will be. The soul knows nothing of its fate and asks, "what shall I answer to the demand for love? I am enveloped in the disgrace of past sin, and maybe God will not accept

my apology, my confession, and will not return l love for love notwithstanding his demand that I love." At this point, God has not yet proclaimed "I love you" (Star 212).

13 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 282,219-226: "Der traditionelle Wahrbeitsbegriff und Seine ontologischen Fundsmente." See also, "Investigation", 22-24, 39-40.

  The soul of man remains silent, ashamed for its earlier transgression which permits not a moment's peace. Lacking all trust, confidence and certainty of the fate of God's declaration, the soul becomes depressed and gloomy. This

situation is concluded from the lack of certainty, qualms and doubt which eat away at every part of the soul and from the will and courage to acquire the love of God, for the soul must be saved from the shame of the past sin. All this

worried the soul, which is helpless, depressed and fearful (Star 210-211). Lacking the faith that God will forgive him, he becomes melancholic (*in deepest darkness") (Star 211). The bothersome condition spreads throughout his

soul, which flutters trembling, in a world of silence. It is traumatized and filled with self-loathing. This is based on Star, page 211, "The mouth has to acknowledge its past and still present weakness by wishing to acknowledge its

already present and future bliss," and, on page 215, "Individually experienced belief had already found within itself the highest bliss destined for it. Now it also finds the highest certainty possible for it.. Now it knows: it need but stretch

out its right hand in order to feel God's right hand coming to meet it." It follows the command in bewilderment, seized by the suffering of his past sin, and seeks God's assistance to gain respite.

  And suddenly, the radical, psychic "shock" comes as does the shout, a massive burst of feeling -- the soul dares to admit its "frailty." It says, "I have sinned," and confesses its present sin. There is no longer a past sin. The soul says,

"I was a sinner," and now, "I am a sinner," changing from the past to the present tense. In this manner the soul overcomes shame and insecurity, and becomes confident that God will forgive it as if he had said, "I forgive." The

dialogue is realized. "I have sinned" should be read "I am a sinner," with 'I' being the basic word of the dialogue".. (for) God speaks as 'I' directly from within him...Only an 'I' and not a 'he', can pronounce the imperative of love.."

(Star 210). This stage marks the admission of real love, whole love, the end of the command "you will love" and its perfection. Since the imperative "love me" in fact cannot remain imperative alone because a response is required,

Rosenzweig maintains that the obedience to the commandment cannot remain mute. Therefore, the commandment can be seen as complete only with a response, the first stage being "I sinned." It is true that, theoretically, the

commandment is only the first part which states "love me", but, as noted above, practically speaking, it can be seen as complete only when the response is given, thus effectuating the commandment, ,and not letting it remain in

empty space. The soul, at the last stage of the prior conditions,  is on its path to attaining the happiness of being loved.

  The above table and subsequent explanation depict the place of the commandment "you will love" and several focal points of the commandment.

                          THE VICTORY OF LIFE OVER DEATH

These foci serve as a basis for the detailed discussion of the second condition to man's meeting his God. The discussion of the characteristics of the commandment will be divided into a number of sections:

  1) Investigation of the parts of the commandment; "you will love" in its total    construction.

  2) Time within which the commandment is valid.

  3) The subjective side of the command.

  4) Its singularity in comparison with other commandments.

  5) Can love be commanded?

Summary

The article describes Rosenzweig's philosophy as it relates to how the relationships between God and people are connected, especially by revelation. He describes what conditions take place before man must can meet with God and how man is responsible for whether that meeting with God will occur. He also talks about God's love for man.

LIST OF SOURCE MATERIAL ABBREVIATIONS



The article will discuss the prior conditions to the occurrence of the meeting between man and God. Several conditions must be fulfilled before man can meet with God: a) Only the gifted man meets with God. He must ear the meeting with god through arduous intellectual and spiritual study and discipline; b) The skilled man cannot yet meet God because he expects redemption from God. The second prerequisite for the meeting is the commandment to love God, after which God can then respond; c) The dialogue begins with the confession of man, which occurs because man thinks it will be to his advantage. He believes that God can forgive him. This hoped-for redemption is build upon a prerequisite of faith. The main purpose of the confession is in the faith that the confession man has in God; otherwise, he would not be confessing before him at all.

Investigation of the pats of the Commandment "You will Love" in its total construction.

1.The Parts of the Commandment

I divided the commandment into two parts. The first portion describes the solitary "I." The commandment "love me" is not yet understood. Man lacks the capacity to love and contains no essence of love; he is all ears. The commandment is the first content to drop into this attentive hearing. The summons to hear, the address by the given name, to 'you', the seal of the discoursing divine mouth – all these are but preface to the complete content of the real essence: love. In this "preface," the first part in my terminology, what can the soul say in response? For there must be a reply. The obedience to the commandment cannot take the form of muteness. It, too, must become audible, become word. For in the world of revelation everything becomes word, and what cannot become word is either prior or posterior to this world (Star 208-210). Perhaps Rozenzweig's reference is to death as he quotes from the Psalms

: "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence. But he will bless the Lord from this time forth and for evermore, Halleluia" (Star 280, from Ps. 115: 17-18). The dead cannot speak; they completed their task with their death.

But the soul remains silent and does not respond, for it has not experienced love, and that period of not being loved, of lovelessness, seems to it covered in deepest darkness. There exists a lack of trust and doubt of the lover's love. It is true that God speaks in the manner of one who demands love, yet voices no indication of his love by saying, " I love you."

The origin of the darkness, Rozenzweig believes, is in the past and only the past, because the sin dates from then, a sin which continues to flood the soul with shame. As long as man remains tied to his past and the "darkness," he does not yet have the strength to speak what is in his hear with confidence, but continues to have doubts in his heart as to the response he will receive, since, as was stated in the first part of the commandment, God demanded the soul 'to love' with no accompanying declaration from God of His love. In this portion of the commandment, the soul seriously doubts that it will receive response or confession.

In its entirety. The concluding part instructs man in anticipation of the acknowledgment. Nothing short of the acknowledgment carries the soul into the bliss of being loved. Previously, all was lovelessness. Hence, it is not easy for the soul to admit, for in the admission of love, the soul bares itself, and to bare oneself is not accomplished without difficulty.

In this part, the soul wants to be loved, but finds difficulty in acknowledging the dark past in which there was no love. In the first part, the soul encountered no sweeping shock or agitation. In the second part, the soul had to receive a shock to become the beloved soul. The soul, in order to become beloved, had to exchange the shame which blocked the beloved mouth that whished to make acknowledgment. And for what was the shame exchanged? Rozenzweig answers: "For current sinning, not for a 'sin' committed in the past…" (Star 212). The confession relates to the present, meaning that it is certain of God's love, as certain as if God had spoke into its ear, " I forgive."

It is as if the excuse to flee the responsibility resulting from past sin prevented the soul, ashamed of its sin, from facing the sin in the present, which is the actual and real time. The soul preferred to remain in darkness like Adam hiding from God in order not to answer for his deeds, or those of the serpent. The more the soul fled from the sin into the past, the more embroiled it became. Only the removal of the sin from the past into the living present resurrects the sin but at the same time causes the shame, which gnawed at the good in the soul and distanced it from God, to die; such a process is comparable to the  psychiatric techniques of freeing one from guilt by resurrecting the sin, thus making it current and destroying the negative causes of past disgrace.

Thus, Rosenzweig states:

Past sins are confessed altogether only for the sake of yet present sinfulness, but to acknowledge the latter is no longer to acknowledge sin—this has passed like the acknowledgement itself—no longer to acknowledge the love-void of the past. Rather the soul says: even now, even in this most present of moments, I still do not love nearly as much as I know myself loved. (Star 212)

Distancing myself from love in the present and the knowledge that I am loved by God are real assumptions of the actual present moment. The knowledge that I am loved replaced the remoteness from the present and removes the burdens of sham for the sin which led to the uncertainty and lack of faith in God and the inability to head God's voice saying " I forgive." The soul says how remote it is from loving (because I am a sinner), but it knows that it is loved, and this acknowledgement is already the highest bliss for it, for in encompasses the certainty that God loves it.

Undoubtedly, in utilizing the concept of raising past sin to the present in order to treat it, Rosenzweig was influenced by psychiatry courses he took as a medical student prior to becoming a philosopher. Man removes his past sin by acknowledging, and to acknowledge he must overcome the shame of the sin, an act which can be done only by admitting the he remains a sinner. The past in his consciousness did not enable him to speak his heart with confidence, and he doubted God's love for him.

In the last part of the commandment Rosenzweig shows the great power of though, the power which enables man to actually hear God whispering into his ear, " I forgive": "..it (the soul) no longer needs this formal absolution. It is freed of its burden at he very moment of daring to assume all of it on its shoulders."

2.The irrational as a source of self-persuasion and influence.

Rosezweig certainly perpetuated the power of the " mental" act that exists without our knowing it. It is deep within us, yet does not affect out individuality. Just as the discovery of America moved the center of gravity of the old world to the West, so too, the discovery and freeing of the mental power, "the irrational," will in the future likely move the center of gravity of man's life from the cognitive, conscious layer of understanding to the subconscious status of pure belief that inheres in the soul of man. The unrecognized term " the irrational" was borrowed from his correspondence with Rudolf Ehrenberg dated November 18, 1917 (Naharayim 205).

This is not the place to discuss this complicated subject. An investigation into the unconscious or "the irrational" would require its own treatise, in which various explanations would endeavor to free their elements from theories changing day to day. But there is a body of facts, proven by experience, about which there is no dispute, and this body of facts enables us to understand Rosenzweig's position vis-a vis the concluding part of the commandment "to love." Two questions relating to the source and form of Rosenzweig's treatment of the subject, assist in understanding that position:

1) What is the source of self-persuasion or internal, absolute conviction that God, as it were, declares when he says, " I love you" or whispers in man's ear " I forgive"?

2) In what form does the soul convince itself ( or more precisely, man's consciousness) spontaneously, to throw off, the compulsion of the shame and pass its entire self over to love? For only yesterday there was "darkness," " doubt," "lovelessness" and suddenly there is a radical change to total confidence and "true bliss" (Star 226, 200, 212-213)

Rosenzweig responds to the first question by referring to the soul. The soul is the source of the self-persuasion or internal, absolute conviction. And what, then, is this soul that serves this promising function? Rosenzwig answers:

The soul is the image of God. "Defiance and character, hubris and daimon had merged in him and had turned him into a speechless, introverted self" (Star 200). " With a resemblance to God, with a personality not mediated through generalization of category nor necessitating multiplicity, with a self. Something new has dawned. But something more than self too—a soul? He is created speech-less" (Star 188) "Were the soul a 'thing', it could not be faithful… it derives from the self of man" (Star  203).

The soul is the power which generates our life: " Now that he emerges from himself, the forces that formed him are disclosed again…pride is… primarily, the beginning of the emergence…" (Star 200)

The soul is the seat of feelings, the activating force: " An awe compounded of humility and pride, together with a feeling of dependence and of being securely sheltered" (Star 201).

The soul is the origin of memories. It knows each and every detail, registers every movement that one takes and every though that one has; therefore, it is even a source to learn from, an experience which ultimately is our experience as wel as of our fathers. Without this important information, the artist cannot attain inspiration for his work. ( Star 219, 227).  The inspiration requires the completeness of all the details and only wealth of memory of the soul can supply it.  "The lifeless image now becomes itself filled with the life which it hitherto only aroused in the spectator ( the unconscious), and thus it comes alive ( conscious). Now it can open its mouth and speak" (Star 201). Such is the essential, real man of Rosenzweig.

The soul is not static, but rather exceedingly dynamic: " He breathed the spirit of life into his nose…," " filled up that life with power… and it  lived…it can speak" (Star 201)

The soul is mysterious, with many details and explanations of it being not within man's understanding.  "Humility is..an altogether essential attribute for him who has it, an attribute in which he moves because he simply does not know differently any more" ( Star 201). Few people know why they do one thing rather than another; they usually do something the correct way when relying on the soul; when they permit the conscious to intervene, they err.

One who relies on the acts of the soul, on its singularity as the source of power and material, has already completed most of his work. This fact brings Rosenzweig to the feasible conclusion: " And gives (man) to be borne on it…it knows that no evil will come to it. It knows that there is no power in the world that can steal its consciousness" (Star 200). For it knows the soul (the unconscious) is more correct, knowledgeable and absolute than the conscious.

The soul supervises the physical process: digestion, absorption, blood flow, actions of the kidney and lungs ( it is true that these processes are controlled by the brain, but the intelligence does no do the work; rather, it is the soul, the unconscious): " After the reversal that occurred in him, he felt agitated, but also bears the fear  with trembling" (Star  201). The physiological influence of the soul is so great and real that one can open one's mouth and speak even with God: "It can open its mouth and speak" (Star 201).

3. On the Source of Self-Persuasion and Influence

            Rosenzweig’s description of the soul is in effect a description of the  “unconscious”; the two share traits which make them seem as one. On the existence of the unconscious, there is almost no dispute among the researchers, and the function of research and science is to conquer more and more of the domain of the unconscious of the soul and raise them to the conscious (see Bergman, 132; see also Gordon).

            “There is ‘in the intellect’ (better we should say ‘of the intellect’) something irrational, something not embraced by the concept of truth (since the truth is forever ‘conforming the likeness to its predicate’)… something of the intellect that is beyond intellect (‘beyond’ in the sense of logic), it is the unity of the two…”True, intellect is the basis of reality, but there is also reality in the essence of intellect” (Naharayim 207-208).

            Is it doubtful that every person struck with a club knows that the bones of the forehead are stronger and harder than the bones of the top of the head, or that a blow to the ears is more dangerous than a blow to any other part of the skull? In any event, when one protects his head with his hands, he protects the endangered parts and rests his forehead to garner the blow. Consciously, certainly everybody would not react the same way, and not everyone is capable or skilled to make that decision, but the unconscious assembles the memories and experiences not only of us, but of out father and our fathers’ fathers, and during the course of many years, the defensive action became disassociated but, nevertheless, occurred, notwithstanding our will and conscious understanding.  Rosenzweig explains: “..for again he does not know any other way…in regard to man in which it inhabits, it is a compelled trait absolutely” (Star 201).

            There are many examples of Rosenzweig’s “compelled trait.” When a child flees from being hit and feels the first ready to strike, he will bend over, his back arched. Unconsciously, he will do what is necessary to distance himself from the attempted blow. When struck, he will bend his back like a car, symmetrically, by which he will protect his heart and lungs. When a person is stabbed from behind, the back will arch, causing the ribs to close together, slowing and restricting entry of the foreign object, sometimes making it impossible for the aggressor to remove the knife from the victim’s back.

            The domain of the unconscious (the soul) contain a mine of information and memories that we would be unable to reach except by deliberation, experience, study and great toil: “ It is that which emerges from the originator without his knowing how, the essential prerequisite of something greater... In effect, then, he regards it only in order to disregard it” (Star 224). Man has not other way but to “be borne on it” (Star 200).

But the task of the unconscious is not only to record, remember and provide upon request; it also has an enormous creative capability. With its vast experience, it makes new combinations and performs much of our work which the rational mental processes of man cannot do: “and realization (the unconscious), that only in it do we find bridges on bridges all out experiences are those of bridge-making…(therefore) only by their relationships, in creation, revelation, redemption are they opened.” “God and the world and man—this conjunctive ‘and’ was the beginning of experience…it must be, then, that it is true in regard to something” (Naharayim 208,230,238).

            “The irrational,” Rosenzweig states, is “ the something of the intellect which is beyond intellect (beyond the logical) intending the genius of man’s power of intellect by means of confirming the coordination of the image with the aspiration” (Naharayim 208). Therefore, it is no marvel that “we are able to do properly many things when we rely on the ‘irrational,’ for the rational is not capable of performing them…” for only man through the last of all generations can confirm (Naharayim 238).

            That is, man must wait until the end of time before having the perspective to confirm or understand the “irrational” and its actions; of course, this understanding is beyond man’s capability. We thus recognize that by permitting the conscious to perform our work, we err hither and thither. Also, we will not be able to locate the reason for the lack of success since the “I is impenetrable and silent and waits to hear God speak” (Naharayim 211).

            The intellect remains open-mouthed to the appearance of the problems of the human body and is lost in the fields of analysis, and each discovery only shows the depths of new secrets. There is no doubt that the ration is the mechanism most appreciated, the seat of logic and ethics, the source of understanding and appreciation of the artistic,. It is a machine, but not the propellant. It provides neither feelings, force nor energy. Those are provided by the irrational, for that is the singular artistic reality. In Rosenzweig’s words: “ this something of the rational, which is beyond the rational (beyond in the logical sense) is unity… it is reality” (Naharayim 208).

            The soul, the irrational, “contains a wealth of details…it becomes manifest only when and as the idea eternalizes the details…not for nothing does one speak of ‘epic scope’…” (Star 223). The man who is seen is the mask only; his actual personality lies behind the irrational or the soul in him. It appears that the irrational records each and every movement we make and every thought we think. In ascending the many steps, the irrational records the number of steps required to ascend one level, and just as we did not feel the matter being recorded, we also will not feel the use of its experience. That it actually counts, though not in the conscious language of number, is proven from the fact that if we want, we can also occasionally life this number from the unconscious to the conscious. One concludes that, on the basis of details of “epic scope,” the unconscious learns from such experience. The unconscious is a power station:

the strength to hold fast, which the beloved soul maintains towards the love with which it is loved, this strength of trust is drawn by it from the defiance of the self which has integrated with it. And because the soul holds onto him, therefore God allows himself to be held by it…It (the soul) proved to be a vital, creative force by tearing the lover’s own love away from the moment and ‘eternalizing’ it once and for all (Star 203).

            The soul is the dynamic force in our lives. The details or the memories are not mute like the marks on a phonograph record, they are vitally active, each one creating one thread in our personal yarn. The soul of the irrational does not rest, and is even more awake when the conscious is sleeping, at which time the soul’s eye is ever more open, thus “ imparting to it eternal being” (Star 203).

            And how can the soul, “the vital, creative force”, rest for a moment? “Without the storms of defiance in the self, the silence of the seal in the faithfulness of the soul would be impossible”. “It ( the soul) listens to the voice of God from nearby…certain of the love of God, as certain as if God had whispered in its ear ‘I forgive’ …” (Star 212).

            “That His love breathed life into him testifies to man himself that he exists” ( Star 201). Rosenzweig explains that the soul brings man to a real, living happening between two living and existing realities. “Love is prevented from making an image of the beloved” (Star 197). Rather, it feels, storms, rests, breathes, hears, and listens to the love of the lover. Only the soul, or irrational, will fill the role of supervisor of the physical process which Rosenzweig emphasizes. The irrational takes part in controlling the digestion, absorption, circulation of the blood, activities of the lungs, kidneys and other vital organs. Our body is called a clock which if wound would continue to move on its own. All the processes, as complex as they are, rest under the management of the brain. Nevertheless, it is not the brain which does this work; rather, it is the irrational, which in this case is the unconscious. The though process itself and its contents are unable to determine the chain of electrochemical events which comprise life (Deliberations).

            According to Rosenzweig, therefore, the source of the internal self-persuasion of inspiration and realization of the concluding part of the commandment to love is the soul, or what cognitive philosophers refer to as the irrational or the unconscious.

4. On the Manner of Persuasion of the Soul Itself

             The second question posed centers around the realization and inspiration of the soul. Rosenzweig responds with the saying” The conclusion of the act is in the beginning, thought” “ Sof Maaseh B’Mahshava Tehillah)” (Naharim 231, from the poem “ Lecha Dodi”). “It is your intention that something will emerge from the conscious – you must first put things into it, just like a cake” (Naharayim 238). Initially, one must bring in the “experience of reality” (Naharayim 238).

            The concept of verified truth is, as noted above, a cornerstone of this new cognitive doctrine. In this context, Rosenzweig states that philosophy cannot become enervated until it descends into man and becomes independent of it (the soul). Then “verified truth” occurs, bringing in conclusion, the following form of reality: A=B when B (man) recognizes his dependence on A (God).

            Now, the truth having been clarified, we can amend the true order of the three—God, man and the world. God, the God of the truth is placed at the head and only he may say “he is” (Naharayim 239).

            Rosenzweig speaks of two levels of intelligence. One he calls “cognition” and the other “experience of reality” ( that is, the unconscious soul) or “verified truth.”  These exist in mutual, continuous activity. Just as every detail in cognitive activity is founded in the unconscious, so too every thought in cognitive activity descends to the lower level (‘experience of reality’), where it becomes an integral part of our being, or A=B in Rosenzweig’s formulation (Naharayim 216; Star 212).

            Cognition takes energy from the unconscious and fulfills its function of caring for and determining out intellectual, conscious and bodily conditions. If the thought is good (God loves me), man is in “absolute bliss,” and if bad ( the absence of God’s love), man is solitary and abandoned, enveloped in a depression caused by the shame of his sin.

            This turning of though into an element of out lives Rosenzweig calls “experience of reality” (Naharayim 238) or in other words, spontaneous and positive self-persuasion. Since this is a normal activity of our brain, it will not be difficult to prove and confirm it by daily experiences (these examples do not concretize a direct, absolute experience of God, but they at least prove that the principle of the form on which the question is asked is acceptable). It opens the gate to understand Rosenzweig’s method of understand the essence of the commandment to love.

• In walking down the street in dismal temperament, you meet an acquaintance in gay spirits. His smile arouses you, and after speaking with him for a few moments, your despair passes and it its place you feel confident and joyful. What caused this change? Nothing other than the idea in your mind. Gazing at him, listening to his voice and observing his laughter, your conscious intellect involved itself with the idea of joy. And this idea, after it passed to the irrational was realized. For no logical reason, you became happy. “For not from the mouth of God came to it this certainty (certainty of love), but from the mouth of the soul (from consciousness via the irrational)” (Star 212).

• You were visiting a friend at his home and listening to a frightful incident of the dead rising form their graves. Late at night you return to your home. The fear described in your imagination became real in the irrational; you walk hastily past dark areas and seek the lit path and are ecstatic when you arrive at your home. It is the same path that you walked many times in the past, nonchalantly, but the pleasant associations are now forgotten, and the most normal objects are now foreign and frightening. The internal power of self-persuasion cannot turn a pole into a walking corpse, but it they easily cause impression, all of your sense impression will be distorted, items will be given unnatural proportion and routine objects will become frightening.

In each of the above examples, the concept of a mental state – joy or fear – is that which is presented to the brain and made real. When thought arrives at the irrational, Rosenzweig calls it “reality” (Naharayim 208). That is, you were, indeed, happy or afraid. Now, therefore, we understand the second part of the commandment to love, which maintains that “ the beloved no longer needs to acknowledge the love of the lover… is it as certain of his love as if he whispered its admission in its ear..This acknowledgement is already the highest of bliss, for it encompasses the certainty that God loves it” (Star 212). This transformation from the past sin to present sin, which is the acknowledgment of love, is not in the domain of the intellect. The intellect of man plays almost no part, rather its principal occurrence is in the sense domain, the experiential or unconscious and instinctive. You were, in fact, loved: “…as if I knew that I was loved” (Star 212).

            This concretization of the essence of the commandment is love. From the moment it reaches the irrational and is received by it, it is made into a never-ending element of our lives: “Not the new solitary moment is that which gives it its presence but rather the eternalization of the moment; since it knows it loves ‘forever,’ and only for that reason, does it feels itself loved every moment” (Star 201).

            However, it is easier to recognize the spontaneous, self-persuasion of Rosenzweig: “…from real word to real word,” and “…as if God whispered into its ear…’I forgive”…” The result is bodily rather than mental, which is clear to use when Rosenzweig emphasized that “only by reflex action can we—and we are commanded even—to recognize the real world also as representative or part of its speech” (Star 217, 212).

• Everybody knows what is called “stage fright.” Its victim can be a normal person, mentally and physically fit. He can also have, in his private life, a sweet voice and be intelligent, a man of ideas with the ability to express them. He can also be confident that those who listen will support him and his ideas. But put him on a stage, and his knees shakes and his heart flutters; he does not know what to say or says too much, he cannot speak clearly, and after stuttering a few words, he must retract his words. The reason for this peculiar phenomenon is in his thoughts prior to his mounting the stage. He feared that he would be ludicrous, would be uncomfortable or perhaps that he would forget his speech or would not succeed in delivering it as he wished. These negative ideas, upon returning to the irrational became real. And exactly that which was received (in the irrational or the unconscious) came to him.
• There are people who suffer from St. Vitus’s Dance. The disease causes them to contort their faces, twist their heads or move their shoulders. Others who come in constant contact with them, who live or work with them, are likely to acquire these habits without feeling it. The idea of this habit, situated firmly in their brain, becomes real and they begin to perform the same movements.

Examples of the law described by the above examples appear everywhere. Did you ask why people faint when seeing blood or why we turn our head in looking from a lofty perch at that which is below? There are neurotics who lose the ability to speak or see and others who are unable to walk. Some suffer from disturbances in one vital organ or another. The reason is not something actual, but is the idea which becomes real in the irrational.

            The above instances of involuntary acts exemplify Rosenzweig’s belief that “ only by reflex action can we – and are commanded even—to recognize the real word also as representative of part of our speech” ( Star 207). But does this occur always or by chance only? Does the commandment to love occur according to this, and not another, universal law through self-persuasion by means of though penetrating to the conscious resulting in its final realization in the irrational?

            Sometimes love that is imprinted form the essence that is exterior to man only increases the hate in our soul, or joy which strengthens the depression we feel. There are persons who become angry when seeing another profess love to that one’s beloved and are upset when watching a comedy on the stage. Doctors are able to listen to the sad and depressing afflictions of their patients without being moved. It seems as if there are contradictions in these instances. But they are nor, and they can be used to confirm the law mentioned above. Just as it was known to one of the great Jewish poets, who lets his friend respond to the king of the Kuzaris (Kuzari 5:27): “I see that you find my words heavy on you and light in your eyes” (quoted in  Naharayim  240).

            The doctor also, in listening to his patients, does not let these ideas inhabit the conscious brain. His thoughts immediately pass on to medicine, to the treatment he will proffer. He does not base his assistance only on hygienic actions, but also utilized the unconscious or the irrational or his appearance and his demeanor. Or he will concentrate his thoughts on the scientific matter before him, and then automatically relate it to the patient as a thing to be investigated. He does not fear climbing the rooftop since thoughts of the danger immediately yield to his knowledge of his head and feet being well placed.

            We have now arrived at a significant point in the process of self-persuasion, in the concluding part of the commandment of love which Rosenzweig attempts to explain. No idea presented to the intelligence will become real until the intelligence accepts it. This assumption is emphasized in his discussion on the ability versus the will in his article, “The Builders” which we shall discuss later. “ True, intellect is the basis of reality….” This reality is the first stage of receiving the idea by the irrational…But there is also reality in the essence of intellect…which is irrational…” ( Naharayim 207), which then, makes the idea real.

            The second stage of the process of self-influence begins in the concluding part of the commandment. Man must know that everything does not rest in his intellect and that he is at all times opens to processes influenced by the understanding of new ideas; only by receiving such new ideas will realization occur. Rosenzweig remarks” …the concept of verified truth is made the cornerstone of the new cognition doctrine…. There is a man who never says ‘he is everything…’ This thing is beyond their understanding ( of the scientific philosophers)” (Naharayim 223,238).

            The majority of the mistakes made by those holding the new philosophy in the field of reality result from their ignoring this basic fact. When a man suffers from severe pain, it does not help to say “it does not hurt you” or “in the next world you will receive reward for your suffering.” The first declaration contradicts the facts; the second is so far removed from reality that it is impossible to accept. Man will refuse the attempt at this realization – the self-persuasion will confirm the fact of his suffering, but which the conscious will treat the pain and undoubtedly make it worse. This attempt at realization, which assumes “that all the rest, the world and God, already lies in man” (Naharayim 223), only reinforced the shame for the sin of the past; the soul cannot repulse the compulsion of the shame by giving itself over entirely to love” (Star 211).

            We can now formulate the fundamental law of reality: Each idea that comes to our conscious intellect, if received by the irrational, is changed by the irrational to reality, and from that moment is an ever present element in our lives.

            It is the process which Rosenzweig calls self0influence of love which comes “buy itself” and “cannot be previously assumed.” It is the self-persuasion that God loves the soul and man and love is “nothing but fate…from ignoring everything that preceded it or that will come after it…” (Star 224, 198, 194).

            It is a law that man’s brain is directed by it through the pat until the present: “it bursts forth from the suffering of the hidden God (the image, the irrational) to revelation (intellect)” (Star 194). The thought that God loves, held by the soul, determines not only the condition of our spirit, but out feelings and sentiments; “shock,” “bliss,” “agitation,” “trembling,” heartbeats, stuttering, blushing and other bodily actions are reactions to the state of “as if God whispered in its ear ‘I forgive,’ and as if “bursts forth…the hidden God to be revealed” (Star 211, 212, 201, 194).

            The above phenomena of the body result from changes occurring in blood flow, activity of the muscles and the vital organic actions. These changes are not dependent on the will and intellect; they are conducted by “something which is beyond intellect…which comes as reality,” and they will come by surprise.

            If we apply our conscious intellect to the idea of love, joy, forgiveness, support and good, and if we can also guarantee their acceptance by the irrational, they become real (“arrive as real”), and they are able to raise us to a new being based on the recognition “that (the sine) is present…. Again there is not acknowledgement of sin….There is no admission of the lack of love in the past….(but) the knowledge that I am loved” ( Naharayim  207, 208; Star 212).

            Rosenzweig’s religious existentialism, which is an original method among religious, and certainly non-religious, existentialism, tries to overcome the lack of certainty that one can be beloved.

            The idea of love, which in the substance of the commandment reaches the brain, requires the emotional reaction of man, according to Rosenzweig. As the “shock”; -- the level of emotion which accompanies love---increases, so does the force of the self persuasion increase: “Thus a shock was necessary before the self could become a beloved soul…in the past there was a time without love…for until this moment it had not been moved nor gripped” (Star 211).

            Similarly, the moment one sees oneself at death’s portal can change one’s entire life. Therefore, one should not be surprised that Rosenzweig begins The Star of Redemption with the sentence: “ All cognition of the All originated in death, in the fear of death” ( Star 45) and concludes it with the words: “ into life” (Star 437).

            This emotional factor serves as important function in realizing the purpose of the commandment to love and to insure its acceptance: “the certainty that God loves you” (Star 212). The act of spontaneity is greater insofar as it touches emotion.

            The body and the soul work one on the other, like parts of an electric induction machine. Goethe stated that when a man laughs without reason, the laugh itself brings the person to a condition of joy. Goethe, who died almost fifty years before Rosenzweig was born, undoubtedly influences Rosenzweig. Though Goethe questioned the philosophy of Kant, his contemporary, each saw in man himself the creator of his life. Goethe wrote in his masterpiece, Faust, in 2832, “There are many puzzles will be solved.” He placed in the mouth of Mephisto the answer: “But many puzzles also will be assembled there” (qtd. In Rosenzweig, Naharayim 240). “ There” is undoubtedly the soul of man, the irrational, and the solution are the calming knowledge that many puzzles are assembled there.

            At the most difficult period of his life, when he was suffering from paralysis of almost his entire body, Rosenzweig instructed himself to use this power of self-influence. He continued to think and write at a time when he could move only one finger or one hand, which he used for typing his manuscripts. Courageous conduct, power of survival the battle against his illness only strengthened the proof of his methods of religious existentialism, which allowed him to believe that internal, spontaneous self-persuasion is the intrinsic, omnipotent divine power. Rosenzweig’s cure was an emotional, rather than a physical cure, for he knew and read Faust:…”emotion is everything…” (qtd. In Rosenzweig  Star 221; compare Star 227).

As far as we can see, acceptance or refusal of the idea of the knowledge “for I am loved” by the soul is irrational, dependent on associations linked to them. Thus, the idea of the absence of shame is accepted if it draws after it similar idea that require similar emotions. For example, “ the acknowledgment ‘I am a sinner’ removes from man his being a sinner in the past and removes the shame from him” (Star 212). Certain that God will forgive his sin, he does not feel the absence of love in the past, and the acknowledgement of the current sin in though already “ is not an admission of the sin which became past as the sin itself…” (Star 212).

            On the other hand,  the idea of live is denied if the association are contradictory ideas, whose emotional load is of another type, such as: “…doubt as to what answer will be given to him…the soul, uncertain, wanting to make the acknowledgment, harbors doubts that its acknowledgment will be accepted” (Star 212). In the last case, the original idea of love is hidden by the associations, almost in the same manner that the chemical alkali can hide the presence of oxygen.

You are on a boat traveling through stormy waters. You approach a sailor, and in a tone of voice sharing the difficulties, state: “Dear man, you are pale. Are you seasick?” He laughs or waves you away in anger, depending on his nature. He was not seasick because his associations are contradictory. In his mind, he is immune from the illness, he does not think of it as a threatening past (like the shame which enveloped man and depressed him), but considers it a present illness, and in the present he is also immune from it; therefore, the illness draws not fear or doubt of his immunity, but rather certainty (“it is certain of God’s love”).

Continuing your tour of the deck, you meet a passenger whose countenance indicates dear. “Sir, you look terrible! You must be seasick; let me help you on your way.” He pales, the word ‘seasick’ raising in him ideas of fear and bad tidings. He accepts your help in reaching his cabin, and there his internal self-influence is realized.

            In the first instance above, the idea (shame) is expelled because the association (in Rosenzweig’s case, love) overcame it; in the second, the irrational, because it was supported by similar ideas (the doubt of God’s response, recollection of the sin, etc.) accepts it.

            As noted earlier, the function of feeling in the concluding part of the commandment to love is to ensure acceptance of the idea of “the love of God” by the irrational:

…rather the concern is with that feeling which immerses itself into the individual natural form and transforms it, through the power of immersion, form a natural form—in and of itself but dimly visible, ambiguously unclear, aesthetically therefore invisible, and so to speak mute—into an artistic form which is determined, unambiguous, aesthetically therefore visible and so to speak eloquent. ( Star 227).

            However, in addition to feeling, there is another condition that ensures acceptance quite and rest. The means used by man to realize the essence of the commandment to live is the thought that the cognition must be silent until it accomplishes total rest: “…it necessarily emerges as serene diffusion…a pride which simply exists instead of distorting man’s countenance with convulsive might…, which spreads out under and around man like the still waters…but a pride which simply is, in which man is at rest and allows himself to be borne, such a pride is, to be sure, the very opposite of ever-resurgent defiance” ( Star 200).

            Since it knows that love is “forever” (Star 200), constant rest, and not the rest of a solitary moment, gives it its strength. Realization of the concluding part of the commandment to love is, as stated above, one of a thousand possibilities man is given by God; yet, it will be realized only via a natural, spontaneous approach. And what is this approach if not the rest which grows from the ability of man in the framework of his will, Only the ability brings man to being chosen and into the sphere of responsibility: “Not by our will but our ability is the matter dependent” ( Naharayim 88). And “just as the cognizance of everything in the cognizance is not yet knowledge, do doing everything in the doing is not yet an act…the principle is – from ability will be done what will be done” (Naharayim 91). “We know only one thing, that we all have the possibility of ability” (Naharayim 92).

            Rosenzweig undoubtedly sees in the will an uncertain force, one that even hinders and causes delay. An attempt to force the unconscious or irrational to accept the idea by the effort of will and not by the intellectual capability will end in failure. Will is defined as a dynamic element in personality. We think it is possible, with effort, to encourage the will, to guarantee victory of one element of personality on the second, which opposes it. By means of the force of will we elevate ourselves, and thus crush the activity of the substantive, that is, of the understanding with the irrational. Only from the ability to think “will be done what will be done.” With out hands we destroy the conditions which enable the success of realizing the concluding part of the commandment, and with the same hands we can cause it to fail.  The man who determines realization of the commandment to live is, ultimately, the non-advanced person, who lacks dynamic desires of energy, unsophisticated and naïve, “serene” man, entirely “tranquil” (Star 201,196).

            Rosenzweig thinks that he errs, who wants to realize the commandment to love: acceptance of the though and its being are fixed in the irrational, via effort of will, in order to ensure the victory of the one element in personality against htat which opposed it ( love versus the absence of love.) Man, whose entirety is ashamed of the sin of the past, thinking that God will not forgive him, will sit and convince himself that God will forgive him. Her attempts. By means of the efforts of his will, to force the irrational or soul to accept the though that God will forgive him and return him love. The effort leads to hyperactivity, and the association of the absence of love in which he is enveloped from the start appears by itself. And he starts to think the opposite of what he intended. Addition effort raises again the though of the “current sinfulness” (Star 212); there is certainty that he will forgive, but because he is present more alert, the opposite associations also become firmer. His thinking capability is the sole control in his brain, and an additional effort of the will cannot move it from its place. And, truly, anything that continues to rise up against it will only reinforce it. This phenomenon demonstrates the concept which Rosenzweig  describes in these words “ … within one’s ability, that will be done what will be done … (for) ultimately, not by our will but our ability is the matter dependent” ( Naharayim 88, 91).

            Some people argue that nothing can withstand the will, yet everyone must know that there are several things which withstand it. Who has not experiences a fearful thought which, though repulsed, returns quicker than it was expelled? The will is the power by which we force this thought or another within us for a period of time. But it is not the expulsion with governs, but rather the reality that is the thought. And what is that: an accurate thought.

            When taking examination, persons often encounter the dismaying experience of having all the information they have accumulated though study disappear when reading the exam  questions. Not one clear thought appears. It only remains for them to grate their teeth and call their will power to assist. However, when they leave the examination room, and the tension lessens, the ideas and information return clearly and strongly. Forgetfulness was due to the idea of failure, which the examinees nurtured in their brain prior to the examination, and the efforts of the will only completed the disaster.

            Rosenzweig states:”… a happy soul…all of it says rest.” We must realize that so long as fear of failure follows us (“it still had doubt in its heart as to the answer it would receive”), efforts for the will will not bear fruit. The act will be effective only if, in place of fear or doubt, we bring confidence( “certain is it of God’s love...as if he whispered in its ear…,’I forgive’”) and a peaceful view of success rather than a fearful and complaining dread of failure. “...until he reaches total dedication from complete certainty…” And when is this “until”? Rosenzweig responds: “constant rest…when the hour will come, the wisdom will come” (Star 196, 201, 212, 215, 229).

            Success in the concluding part of the commandment to love is dependent upon the skill of a healthy intelligence in waiting; it has no “idée fixe” (Naharayim 229).  The soul will nullify its shame and attain the answer “I forgive” and knowledge “he is” (“My beloved god, he truly is God”) only via the certainty which comes from waiting. He must continue to love; the hour will come, wisdom will come. This secret envelops within it all the wisdom of the new philosophy. It teaches, in Goethe’s words, the ‘understanding in time’…” (Naharayim 229).

            Every effort to quicken the process of self-persuasion in the essence of the commandment to love is fatal. Every artificial attempt only hastens failure rather than success ( as stated by Rabbenu Haim Ben Atar, who lived in Jerusalem approximately 250 years ago, in his book on the Torah,  Ohr HaHaim). An order of redemption of Israel is hinted at in Lev. 25, and Ohr HaHaim enumerates three factors for redemption: 1) the merit of the righteous men and the people, 2. Suffering, and 3. Redemption which is not dependent on merit. So, too, realization of the commandment to love requires restful waiting, with which it will succeed. Only if the brain concerns itself with the positive ability of thought rather than effort of dynamic will will the commandment be realized to the extend of its realized capability: “ My beloved God, he is truly God” (Star 213).

5. Time and Unity in the Commandment “You will Love”

            As shown above, the present time, and only the present time, is the most significant and important factor that characterizes the command. Every attempt of reconciliation with the past only immerses the soul in doubt, uncertainty and hesitation in answering. Were the time of the commandment not the present, this condition of the command could not be fulfilled as one of the conditions for the meeting between man and God as formulated by Rosenzweig. It was also noted that the present restful times ensures attainting the bliss in which the acknowledgment that God loves in enveloped. Only one single factor can assist by means of its singular characteristics in opening the mouth of the beloved. This factor is time, which transfers the sinfulness of the past “ to current sinfulness, nor as ‘sin’ that I committed in the past” (Star 212) By changing one time for a contradictory time the soul sweeps away the shame of the sin and offers himself entirely to love.

            In his discussion of the valid time of the commandment, Rosenzweig relies heavily on the commandment “to love” as being a commandment in time to the extent of seeing time as the essence of the content of the commandment. Rosenzweig sets forth several assumptions: “ The commandment knows only the moment…thus the commandment is purely the present...its content tolerates only the form of the commandment, of the immediate presentness…” (Star 209). Rosenzweig thinks that since it is a commandment in the form of the imperative (Gebot),  it is based only on that moment of the pure present. All its content is an utterance that must be in the present, otherwise there would be no distinctive command and the commandment’s complexion would change. Its content is time and also its occurrence, for it takes place in the imperative: “love me.” “ Love me” is the perfect expression,  the pure language of love (Star 209).

            This present, which emerges from each and every moment of man, and at the moment of its emergence it already attains speech, has no intermission for preparation or even though. Its consciousness has already emerged in the hidden secretive irrational, and the idea is already accepted that God loves him. BY means of this secret, the love of God for him is revealed each and every moment. Love in the present, upon its emergence, attains perfection, but the acknowledgement is not yet complete, for the third condition, discussed below, must be fulfilled.

            In “emergence” (Naharayim 209), there is not even an appeal to thought or actual preparation, for the advent and the speech “love me” are one. The momentariness of the present and the speech of command are one unity of the occurring reality which leads to realization of the completion of the concluding part of this commandment. This is the unity of the commandment in the pure language of love: ‘love me’ = momentariness emerges. “For in it time is made real entirely. Not in time does the entire occurrence take place, but it, time, itself occurs” (Naharayim 228).

            Time is that which makes distinctive the commandment defined “this is today”; it is the occurrence, “the imperative of the commandment’ (Star 209). The love of the lover lives, under the domain of “ the great today” (Star 209) – “for you will guard this wole commandment, to that which I command you this day (each and every day), to love the Almighty, your God”; “which I commanded you today to love the Almighty, your God, to walk in his paths and to obey his commandments and laws…” (Deut 19:9).

            All the revelations, Rosenzweig says, are subsumed under “the great today” (Star 209):

            “today on the mountain of the Almighty he will be seen” (Gen. 22:14)

            “today the Almighty appeared to you” (Lev. 4:4)

            “today that which the Almighty said” (Sam A 24:5)

            “this is the day that the Almighty gave” (Judg 4:14)

            “I five to you today” (Deut, 4:8)

            “this is the day God made” (Ps 118:24

            “obey that which I commanded you today” (Exod. 34:11)

“You shall obey his laws and his commandments which I command you today” (Deut. 4:40)

            The commandment, then, knows “today”—the moment of the pure present in its renewal. i.e. each day appears as new. (Lam. 3:23: “They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.”) The commandment is not the form of the declaratory “which has behind it the whole cumbersome rationalization of materiality, and at its purest therefore appears in the past tense” (Star 209). Study of the sources is sufficient to show that the “great today” is the symbol of the commandment. “The great today” is the basis and secret of certainty, the total confidence in the content of the commandment, for it confirms the presence of today standing before me as opposed to the past of yesterday which no longer exists and the futures of tomorrow which cannot be located. Whom will the soul believe if not the “he is” of the form of the utterance of the present, of the now, of the real imperative – “love me” ? (Star 213, 209- 210).

            In what can the soul hope if not the form of the present tense of speech – “ I am a sinner’? Rosenzweig thinks that the soul can, after it dares to bring the past to the present, free itself from its restrictions and become ready to feel “ that its acknowledgment of the past sin, again is not an admission of sine but that it became past like the sin itself upon which it acknowledged…(rather its knowledge is renewed)… I knew that I am loved” (Star 211-212).

            Thought in t he present says to the soul that the knowledge in the past that it was loved is renewed each and every moment of the present. By force of the momentariness of the present, t he past is cleansed and gains hope in the present and in preparation for the future. This is the generating force, potential power made kinetic, love, facing the future. This is an enormous force, which cleanses the soul of every bit of shame of the past sin and terminates its doubt as to God’s answer. Present time grants the soul total certainty in the love of God at the moment it dared to acknowledge, the past behind it, her entreaty prepared.

            In realize the commandment to love, the resent has the power to fill the soul with associations which support and strengthen the soul, the irrational. Only in the present does the soul know that it has no business with “ …self-delusion of the beloved soul but that her beloved is a veritable man” (Star 213). It is a sort of rebirth of the soul in the present, a birth of gathering refreshed strength and certainty to realize the reality of the commandment to love. As it is said, “…and make you a new heart and new spirit” ( Ezek. 19:31) and” …and ye shall bring forth the old because of the new” (Lev. 26:10). This is “today” in which the love of the lover lives (Star 209), and each day is “like new that everybody desires it.” (Lam. 3:23). Therefore, the verse says “today” “in order that you will not consider it like a command of the king, to which man does not may attention, but like something new that everybody desires it.”

            In the commandment to love, present time renews itself each moment as a new and existing moment. It is not constant present which passes once to the past, like the indicative. “The love of the lover is light which burn constantly anew, each moment must become for it the first sight of love” (Star 201). Rosenzweig requires that the commandment not renew itself forever as a dynamic present. It must renew itself each and every moment. It is forever within “today,” but all the dead yesterdays and tomorrows will one day be devoured in this victorious “today.” “Only this completeness of each moment permits it to grasp the entirety of created life, but thereby it can really do so” (Star 209, 201, 196, 198).

            The entire contact of the commandment to love is utterance of the pure present, distinctively “pure language of love”; otherwise, there would be no distinctive command and the commandment would change complexion. And what factor distinguishes the commandment from other commandments? Rosenzweig explains: “The imperative of the commandment makes no provision for the future; it can only conceive the immediacy of obedience. If it were to think of a future or an ‘Ever’ it would be. Not commandment nor order (Gebot), but law (Gesetz)” (Star 209).

            The verse says: “ You will obey the commandment and the laws and ordinances which I command you today to do” (Deut 7:11), and not “ you will obey the commandments,’ for one commandment alone is distinguished from the other commandments, laws and ordinances, and this is the commandment to love. It could never be law, whereas the other could be, and therein lies its distinguishing feature.

            “What is this commandment of all the commandments?” Rosenzweig asks. His answer is “you will love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Star 210).  That is the distinctiveness of the phase “love me!” (Star 210), which does not think about the future and is thus not law. He explains: “law reckons with times, with a future, with duration. The commandment knows only the moment; it awaits the result in the very instant of its promulgation” (∫Star 209). Law does not direct itself towards something, but speaks objectively in the third person to someone; the commandment is singular in that, grammatically, it is the imperative of the present, it is directed to the you. Law considers that which will follow, with time, with the future, with the impersonal. It worries about changing the condition, about the encounters with time and the possibilities of alienation and infidelity.

            Contrarily, the commandment to love knows only the moment: “the commandment knows only the moment” (Star 209). Rosenzweig maintains that if each commandment, exteriorly and to some degree posteriorly, could also be law, one commandment could not in any way be law, and that is the commandment to love. The commandment is not to be understood as law as one constant and preordained formulation, but as an imperative resulting form the moment of revelation. Revelation is the momentary meeting between man and God, and the commandment receives from this meeting the form of momentariness. The relationship of Rosenzweig to the commandment to love is the imperative relations of command only (Gebot). Its content tolerates only one form of the commandment, of the immediate presentness and unity of consciousness, express and expectation of fulfillment. In this pure, temporary form, Rosenzweig find the commandment to love’s supremacy vis-à-vis the other commandments. Thus God’s speech begins with “ you will love,” and everything added to it, potentially becomes also law; however, in potential and actuality there is only one commandment that does not change its essential covering, and that is ‘to love him’ “today in which exists the love of the lover ‘which I commanded you today’” (Star 201, 209).

6. The Imperative as Expression of Love

            Embedded in the commandment to love is a paradox: “ Can one be commanded to love?” Rosenzweig asks this question, trying to understand “the call of the lover ‘love me’…with no preparation… and also with no prior thought” (Star 209). The quintessence of the command is parallel in fact to its true essence—the spontaneous and voluntary nature of the act. And now man is commanded to do it? Is this not astonishing? Can on love “on order”? Certainly, one cannot. “ A third party cannot command it and force it…a third party, no; but the One can” (Star  208,209). The commandment to love can come from the mouth of the lover alone. Only the lover can, and has the right, to demand “love me.” In the mouth of the lover, this imperative is not foreign , coming from without, but is the voice of love itself: “In his mouth the commandment to love is not a strange commandment; it is none other than the voice of love itself” (Star 209) .

            Moreover, the lover has no means, no other word to express his love, other than the request of this commandment. And only through this love of God for man comes God’s commandment to man: “So too the I of the speaker, the root-word of the entire dialogue of revelation, is the seal which , stamped upon each word, makes the individual commandment as a command to love.” ( Star 210). This command is the fruit of the moment of love. The lover does not worry about the future. “ The imperative of the command has no expectation for the future.” (Star 209): “The imperative of the commandment makes no provision for the future…” (Star 209).

            All true love is renewed from moment to moment and grows in the moment. Only the command results in the complete and significant expression of love: “the commandment must renew itself in each and every moment and be the fruit of the instant” (Naharayim  88).

7. The Subjective Aspect of the Commandment to Love

            The commandment “you will love “ refers to a specific subject: man. “Wherever it is, this is a midpoint and wherever it opens its mouth, there is a beginning” (Star  218). “If I am here, everything is here,” in the words of Hillel. The second part of the commandment to love is based on that which man himself sees and experiences. Man listens to what is in his heart through “unity of consciousness”. (Star 209), using the yardstick of what is in his heart together with his subjective inclinations.

For it demands a midpoint in the world for the midpoint, a beginning for the beginning of its own experience…as long as it ( the soul) lingered in the past…it still could harbor doubts…whether it acknowledges its sinfulness as present sinfulness, not as ‘sin committed in the past, it is certain of the answer…it perceives it in its interior. It is not God that need cleanse it of its sin. Rather, it cleanses itself in the presence of his love…It no longer needs this formal absolution…It is freed of its burden at the very moment of daring to assume all of it on its shoulders….no longer (needs) to acknowledge the love-void of the past…rather...I know myself loved…This certainty comes to it, not from God’s mouth, but from its own (Star 212, 218).

            Because the soul in its inner self, the irrational, decides in conformity with its subjective inclination to take charge of its fate, to experience all its experiences through its “I,” by means of the personal entreaty to the depths of its being, it needs no proofs or testimony external to it: “ Only an ‘I,’ not a ‘he,’ can pronounce the imperative of love…” (Star 210). Rather, it requires “splendorous light,” “a vision burst into flame,” the subjective inner aspect of the love of God which cleanses itself.

            In the subjective process, feeling has a significant and powerful place. When there is a relationship based on man’s self-feeling and his personal, private, entreaty, man does not require an explicit forgiveness from God, for his subjectivity has already said to him that God loves him, which subjectivity is sufficient for it.

            The more one deviates from the borders of its subjectivity and brings external proofs, the more the certainty given by the subjective will be damaged. For there is only one source of realize the commandment, and it is “its mouth” (Star 212). This is the subjective truth, the most basic result of the personal knowledge of man – the entirety of the knowledge, evaluations and conceptions that are personal to man. If he is certain of the verity of his subjectivity, that is the singular truth, there is no other, there cannot be another. Its verity is the superpower of the universe, there is nothing stronger, nor can there be. And just as he is promised that morning will follow night, so, too, is he promised his verification forever and ever, because “Man believes in himself for than 100 men.”

            As shown above, man is subject, a fact, which is integral to the existence of the commandment to love. Man, in his subjective individuality, is the basis of Rosenzweig’s philosophical method ( Star  218). Rosenzweig speaks of the concept of capability ( Naharayim ∫89-90) alongside the subjective individuality as one body; but the concept of reality ( Naharayim 238) is a synonym for subjectivity in its individuality. It is the relationship of man to himself, the relationship to the possibility of adaptation, for the nature of man is in his ability to be himself, for the complete fulfillment of the commandment to love. We learn this in Heidegger from the concept “ Dasein,” which means being itself in the knowledge of existence: “being here,” and it is made concrete in the concept “projection” (“Geworfenheit”). Man is thrown into his real existence such that he cannot find himself until he is already there. (Being, 42-43). This capability is not a characteristic of a thing, for since he is a man, “capability” and not desire, he can select himself and perceive himself as one of his details. Or on the opposite, losing himself and understanding himself in an errant way as partiality only. As Heidegger defines it, being that is not like its being “ ( uneigentliches Dasein”) (Being, 84).

            The point of departure of the perception of the existing commandment of Rosenzweig is the point of departure of the critical philosophy of the new time, the word, the subject rooted in the commandment, the “I” in its individuality ( Naharayim 18-37). The subject of the commandment is here similar to the transcendental subject of traditional philosophy, the general consciousness, which contains the a priori forms of cognition which lend objectively to the cognition of the Individual “I,” and not the pure consciousness of examining the phenomena by experience. The general consciousness, as individual consciousness detached by the phenomenological reduction from actual man in whom the consciousness resides, is made pure in this sense that there is nothing but the subject of “unity of consciousness” (Star 209).

            According to Rosenzweig, the subject of the commandment “you will love” is man in his complete and concrete reality, in whom there is no separation between the realities of body and soul , and reality is in this world and not beyond it. Therefore, the man who loves as subject understand himself in an original manner, from the aspect of the reality of his “I,” and from the aspect of his self in its relationship to the world of things in which he was the midpoint and the beginning.

            To the being of man belongs  a priori understanding of the being of things, and the philosophy must prove this understanding with explicit and methodical expression. The unity of consciousness attributes to object, in its first perceptions, an independent reality, a reality which is part of the independent world to which man belongs. The subject of the consciousness is a real man who belongs in the real world.

            One can relate dynamically to the commandment to love, given as object of the consciousness ( by its being objectively received by the irrational), within the subjective consciousness. What is external to man is the object, which is form and beyond the object with which man is no longer involved. Therefore, the existential understanding of the commandment to love understands man’s consciousness as “pure love: in the sense of understanding the relationship to the object of love in its purity. The same original consciousness relates to the object and provides man with the love of God and the world. The love of man is a condition necessary to the entire existential relationship to the world and to God, since it is the condition to the basic fact that he is in the world for himself and therefore “demands a midpoint in the world” (Star 218).

Summary

This article begins with a description of the soul of man as the unconscious or the irrational, an element of our being which is records and remembers every moment of every detail of our lives at all points in time. But the irrational (soul) is not to be thought of like computer just saving information, but rather as a dynamic and active force in our life, being active at all times. The soul is the decided part in our understanding of the last part of the Commandment to love.  The second part of this section deals with how the commandment comes to the soul. According to Rosenzweig, when a thought reaches the irrational or the soul, it becomes “reality,” for example, when joy reaches the irrational we are indeed feeling joy. Therefore, according to Rosenzweig, you cannot make a conscious intelligence based decision to follow the commandment, it has to be a reflex action taken on by the irrational or the soul. It has to be achieved while at total rest. We cannot force ourselves, through the use of our will, often considered the most powerful force in the world, The more we try to apply our will to following the commandment, the more we will fail. You have to let it come naturally, you cannot attempt to hasten the process, or it will result in ultimate failure.  The next sections centers on the concept of the commandment to love being in the imperative present. One must focus only on the present moment and not the “sin of the past” or the possibility of tomorrow, for the commandment was given in the present tense “today.” The present becomes an ever renewing moment, the commandment renewing itself from moment to moment and growing. The last section centers on the subjectivity of the commandment.  The irrational is the subject, the “I”, or man kind. The more one tries to bring in external proofs the more one will fail in understanding the commandment to love... When put together, the commandment is a given imperative, given to man in his entirety, his body and his soul, the rational and the irrational, living within his own reality in the present and in this world only not in some other world beyond.

LIST OF SOURCE MATERIAL ABBREVIATIONS

דף הבית

Abstract

The article will discuss the belief aspect of the meeting. His faith supports and reinforces the meeting. Its foundation is in the knowing objectivity of the past, and it is manifested as experiential, subjective "orientation" of the present. This link, between the factual past and the believing present, is created through the certainty that the God man loves in truly god, and this certainty's source is in the soul: "For it is the soul and not the intellect that feels God."

Only after the prior conditions for the meeting are fulfilled does revelation occur.

            The meeting that is revelation which Rosenzweig speaks about is not the revelation on Mount Sinai; rather, it is the meeting between God and man.  An example of this meeting is described in the memorandum of Pascal.[1]  This conclusion is reached by considering the name and content of the chapter in Book Two of Star—“The Ever-Renewed Birth of the Soul,” which describes the discovery of God in the soul of man, that is the meeting of the absolute and the soul of the lover.  Hereafter, “the meeting” refers to the personal revelation of God to man.

The history of the Orientation

            The meeting which Rosenzweig describes is, in effect, “orientation”  [“Revelation is orientation”  (Naharayim  206],  an orientation in creation in a mirror of discovery or, in other words, that which implements the meeting (revelation). For example, the power of speech of God to man during the creation of the world ensues, in respect of man, in the present by means of the renewed image of the revelation  The meeting is the demonstration of the creation of the past: “That which sounded in advance out of that all-embracing, lonely, monologic ‘let us’ of God’s at the creation of man reaches its fulfillment in the I and Thou of the imperative of revelation”  (Star 217).  A second demonstration is the initial disclosure of time past.  The creation made in revelation is the creation of revelation.  In truth, this duality in the concept of the meeting is encompassed within the essence of the definition of this concept:  the meeting means that God discloses Himself in the meeting with man, objective and concrete; rather than subjective and experiential.  Moreover, Rosenzweig wants to establish the historical aspect of the meeting, the historical aspect being the dependence of the experience on what was beyond it, i.e., the dependence of the present on the past.

            However, Rosenzweig’s perception is not the central point of a singular, historical revelation; his commentary does not rest on the Ten Commandments but on the Song of Songs. The meeting is not an occurrence that has taken place previously, disconnected and separated from us.  The meeting returns and repeats; it is the property of each and every person; indeed, it is a property founded in miracle and not on the street.  Nevertheless, the time of revelation is not historical, objective time, but rather experiential, subjective time (Star 195-196, 214-215, 232-235)

Rosenzweig is able to establish these two aspects of the meeting.  The present experience confirms the revelation of the past and repeats it.  However, it is clear that the lines which are conspicuous here, the confirmation and the return, testify to the entry of the subjective aspect into the meeting.  The meeting commenced sometime in the past, but it continues and proceeds.  Its reality is not in the past, its reality is the reality of the present.

Only when the conditions were fulfilled, conditions which realized the experiential and current nature of the meeting, can a past be constructed, which leads, of necessity, to a meeting.  The meeting is an objective attempt based on the creation of the past, and “revelation is providentially ‘foreseen’ in creation—revelation in its entire contents, thus including also redemption” (Star  146).  Even Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, admits, correctly, that “the demonstration (of this creation) will be always mentioned respectfully.  It is the oldest, clearest and most appropriate for simple human intellect… that is, it will not alone despair, but it will be worthless also if we shall want to diminish the loftiness of this demonstration.”  “truth is always that which has been, whether as ‘a priori’, or ‘towering in ancient sacred might’ with Plato, or as an object of ‘experience’” (Star  141).  Thus, one’s observation of reality is determined by means of an objective view of the past.  The accepted perception is derived from the assumption that the link between God and man is a pre-revelation; it is requisite to a perceived creation, in the accepted conception, as a willful act.  Revelation of belief added this form of connection, and explained the obligations imposed upon man, whose origin is in creation.  In the conventional conception God proclaims his existence, and this existence is the root of the particulars of the obligations, which are the contents of revelation.  Rosenzweig altered the conventional conception by making revelation of belief a basic law of the relationship (see the reference in the first subtitle of chapter three), and not a superstructure founded on the earlier relationship, the relationship of creation.  Therefore, an expression of revelation appropriate to the covenant between God and man is required.  He made the revelation into a covenant (“I am yours,” “you are mine” (Star 214)) and an aspiration to devotion, not a dogmatic content.

In Naharayim, the meeting is defined as orientation, a new direction which alters totally the image of reality but does not replace it with another.  The meeting is an orientation which results not from exemplary cognition, which compiles with the fundamental metaphysical demands, and is not a supernatural phenomenon crossing the world’s boundaries and order and which reveals a new network of cosmic existence; rather, it is a new direction, which grants, via a divine path, creation, revelation, redemption, direction and meaning that would have remained withered without it, governed and stricken by so-called “comprehensive” worldly conceptions (206).

This new direction is rooted in time past.  Therefore, the dual formulation of God’s response is understood:  “I called you by name, you are mine,” and not by the simple formulation of “you are mine.”  In the first, God raises the past, the language of the creation of the world in order that the present will be seen as a living language in interaction (Star 194).

The monologue of the past becomes a dialogue between God and man, “as a second revelation” or “as a second meeting.”  The first meeting testifies to God as the present and existing creator.  The second meeting brings life to this objective knowledge about the most personal, dynamic and real experience that man could ever feel in his life.  The past simply appears in the light of the present as a discovery of the second meeting.  The present is not only a counting of the singular, internal, current experience, but rather is also the present in the world.  This world which was closed opens momentarily, meaning “that it may be none other than the opening of something locked” (Star 194).  It is a world in which God is present, and the soul is made part of the world--and a part, then, of God.

Therefore, the meeting is not only characterized by the present.  It is a demonstration of a new reality in the looking-glass of the past.  Rosenzweig opposed Schelling’s revelation theory, in which revelation is understood as a personal experience of the Almighty, “pure” revelation, independent of a factual basis.  Rosenzweig emphasizes the new current status of the meeting.  The content of the meeting is the love of the heart as fateful power, lacking a past, emerging fro mthe moment and from it alone.[2]  The entire meeting, having been concluded, knows its past as a part of the world of the past; the presence of the meeting, then, achieves a significant standing in the world.

The meeting is living, actual and existing testimony to the premeeting which occurred in the third revelation (of the meeting) ‘I and Thou’, is language from the beginning, which, being spoken, makes man human” (Star 145, 195).  All that which is founded on the past is not only internal in the present, but appears to the eye in the effulgence of the moment; “…a revelation which is nothing more than revelation”  (Star 194).  The fact that a dialogue is possible between different periods of the world (past and present) is the great marvel of our existence, and it is not only the basis of the reality of the meeting, but the essence of the meeting (Briefe 712).

The demonstration of a new reality or orientation does not mean that something foreign entered the world, rather the meeting of the revelation is creation in the looking-glass of discovery.  The meeting is made concrete in the meeting of the revelation, “which does not ‘posit’ anything, which creates nothing from within itself in the void” (Star 194).  Though it exists[3] from the beginning in “I called you by name,” the call exists entirely, created wholly, “for only by the revelation of the meeting in the present does it awaken to life (in the language of ‘I and Thou’) also as a representative of one species of word” (the “I and Thou” of the actual dialogue) (Star 207).

             The idea that revelation is a demonstration of creation, and that creation appears in the power of this revelatory meeting was already emphasized by Rabbi Yehuda Halevi in the Kuzari; the difference is the manner in which the vision is explained.  According to Yehuda Halevi, the vision is public (articles 4 and 14), whereas Rosenzweig considers it individual.

            Thus, nothing in the revelatory meeting is new, there is no cosmic intervention in creation, but it is rather observation and occurrence materializing together.  It is wholly sign, wholly the process of making visible and audible the providence which had been concealed originally in the speechless night of creation, wholly revelation.

            On the objective implements of creation Rosenzweig bases the source for explanation and understanding the new orientation, faith.  We rely on sight and hearing, our senses, when describing God as creator and present, who creates the world with his great mercy.  “Were it not that I saw it with my eyes- I would not have believed” (Psikta Rabati, 32).  There is a God, He is present and is creator.  I saw a wonderful world existing before me in his great kindness.  “Because of God’s kindness, the world exists” (Rashi, Pirkei Avot, ch 1:2).  Orientation causes man to know first of all that creation is the description of God as the most objective presence of the past.  And the new orientation is a novel in its subjectivity constructed on the objectivity of the past.

            The beginning of faith orientation is in creation.  The history of creation and its annals- tradition- are the beginning of belief as “a completely historical belief”  (Star 134), “which belief remained historically anchored.”  In the orientation of the meeting there is a logical, factual element which sees throughout creation a description of God as present in the purely objective past.  Creation logically orients man that the God who is present or exists is God the creator.  The fact is based on the relationship between the Almighty and the world, and is a logical relationship of the Creator to the created.  Only from logic do we learn that God is present, from which logic we know also about Him and relate to Him.  This relationship is descriptive knowledge is based on the absolute idea of a present God without any addition of retroactive realization.  This knowledge is testimony to the elemental orientation of belief, of relationship, between God and the world alone.  This knowledge served as a fundamental testimony to the teleological perception of Rosenzweig to the point of dependence of this declaration of the existence of God-- “if you are my witnesses, I am God.”  On the verse from Isa. 43:10, 11 “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord.. I Even I, am the Lord,” he quotes the Sages: “when you are my witnesses, then I am God, and when you are not witnesses, it is as if I am not God” (Star 107).[4]This is living testimony of the objectivity of creation, testimony that God creates that which is etched in man’s consciousness.

            Historically, we know of a living God, but one living, within His inner domain, and we also know of Living Man, whose life occurs within his domain of human reality.  God is yet closed as an elemental fact, everything happening to him occurs only from him to him in the image of creation as description present and existing.

            In this elemental knowledge is woven the information for the orientation of belief in the meeting in the present.  Orientation exists in the meeting of dialogue from the beginning since the word “is from the beginning and already bears in its womb every speaker who will one day affect the miracle of renewing it” (Star 148, 188). “…[M]an became man when he first spoke” (Star 179; also 147).  In fact, with “‘let us’ for the first time the magic circle of objectivity is breached” (Star 187).

            In God’s call “Where are you?”, God asks “you” (Star 207).  When his name is called, man responds “Here I am” (Star 208).  Orientation is one of history, and belief results from this history: “…only in this its historicity… does experienced belief come to rest in this certainty of having been long ago summoned, by name, to belief” (Star 215).

            The historical presence of the stories of the Bible is the most trustful proof of belief in the experience of the meeting (Star 134).  Conscious of this special connection between the knowing “past” and the believing “present” may be seen as one of the fundamentals of the theology of the meeting according to Rosenzweig.  This connection is expressed in footnotes to Yehuda Halevi:  “Beyond all our knowledge rests God.  But prior to beginning what we do not know, you are handed for your perusal…for your comfort…God himself.”  (Sechzig Hymnen 184).  The knowing past is not invalidated.  Though its period is limited by belief, it remains included within it and changes the theology to rationalistic theology, though in a totally different meaning from the rationalistic theology which preceded Kant.  This note is presented as the opinion of Else Freund: “[Belief itself] is belief which emphasizes the ratio as creation, and by merging creation, belief erects rationalistic theology.”[5]  Fulfillment of the meeting is “tradition” itself.  Belief, as explained and understood by the new orientation, remains historically anchored- the individual becomes a new believer, but a new belief does not emerge.  Therefore, to narrow the path of this belief, enlightenment based on history rather than natural science is necessary.

            Rosenzweig sees in history, for example, the historical and experiential facts—the exodus from Egypt and Mt. Sinai-- which always comprise the source, from which results all of our knowledge of the Creator. 

For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great is, or hath been heard like it?

Did people ever hear from the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?

Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war an by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightiest know that the Lord he is God; there is none else beside him. (Deut. 4:32-35)

The emphasis does not allow room for error.  The knowledge of God in the meeting with man is founded on the national experience of Israel and on the word of time past, that emerges “from the stone of creation” (Star 179).  The orientation of belief is “wholly anchored in history” (Star 134).  This history, which is wholly past is not revealed but is a mirror of light of the present: “But the past only becomes visible to revelation when and as revelation shines into it with the light of the present” (Star 217).

            By this act, the soul can see and hear the past, which erupts from within the existential light of the present.  Consciousness of the past is the informative background to the expression of belief.  This consciousness contains experiences, awareness, traditions, feelings and thoughts.  This consciousness has within it the cognitive sense of knowledge and discernment and confirmation by the senses through which man perceives and understands the world.  This is cognition de facto- cognition in action – and even though it is not perceived directly and initially by sight and hearing, smell, touch and taste, there is a pure, real cognitive awareness as if man stands watching the fire and hearing the sounds of Mt. Sinai and the voice of God in the Garden of Eden.  It is like living history: the attempt to sacrifice Isaac, Mt. Sinai, etc. continue and are renewed each moment in the soul of Religious Man.

            Rosenzweig gave a new orientation to that of time past without changing tis factuality.  “Realization of belief is in tradition”  (Star 134).  That is to say, by not relying on man’s temporary ability to attain verification via research, Abraham is promised that the truth will be preserved by his offspring who will strengthen this belief and transmit it onwards to their children.

   Only in this backward glance does the past prove to be the base and prediction of the present experience, domiciled in the I… that which sounded in advance out of the all-embracing, lonely, monologic ‘let us’ of God’s at the creation of man reaches its fulfillment in the I and Thou of the imperative of revelation.  (Star 217)

            Rosezweig considers the meeting a miracle. Being that the meeting is an orientation of belief, “… miracle is really the favorite child of belief” (Star 131).  The miracle of the meeting is nothing other than revelation (encounter) of that which is set aside and hidden, creation in the mirror of revelation, the fetus in the womb of mother belief, just as the meeting expresses that which was stored in creation.  It is revelation in its primary sense, such that the miracle is only the fact that what happens, happens; the occurrence is understood as miracle.  The essence of the miracle of the meeting is that it took place at all, that the words did not remain encompassed and internalized within themselves.  The movement to time and occurrence is the miracle of the meeting.

            The meeting is a miracle in the natural sense.  There is an attempt to sunder the supernatural character by giving a rational explanation to an occurrence perceived to be a miracle. Belief in the miracle of the meeting is that which makes the event, or what is said of it, miraculous.  Every event is understood from the point of view of man, it is a sign of occurrence in nature of time past and prophesies the future.  The miracle of the meeting is ready, together with everything else that was created, from the six days of creation until the day it will emerge.  The world, of necessity, obeys natural laws.

            In subjective observation of the meeting there is objective implication vis-à-vis the believing observer.

   The miracle had to be proven… the circumstantial evidence for the miracle can be supplied by its success; but this success proves the miracle only for those for whom it is a ‘portent’, that is, for those who as eye-witnesses attended the miracle during the entire course of its occurrence… in taking their sworn testimony, their personal credibility will be decisive, as well as the estimate of their capacity for observation…(Star 133-134)

            Therefore, each event can be a miracle from the perception of one man, a believer, and a natural occurrence in the eyes of another, a non-believer.  The non-believer also believes in the occurrence; he admits its existence, but he believes in the natural characterization of the said event.  The miracle is the historical occurrence of the past that is revealed and occurs in the meeting in the present.  “…In the glow of the experienced miracle of revelation, a past that prepares and foresees this miracle becomes visible” (Star 214).  Indeed, the present confirms the miracle of the past.  The miracle of the meeting is the possession of man by means of which he can hear the voice of God speaking to him.  This is the orientation of that of time past.

Orientation Resulting from the Spanning of Bridges

            The orientation of that of time past does not alter these objective elements and objective remnants without changes and additions, but there is a new orientation which is a recapitulation of a communicative act between the elements of God, man and the world.  The communication between God and man which bursts forth on the personal experience and engenders the revelation of God is the focus and actual essence of the belief orientation of Rosenzweig. Without a bridge between God and man, God would remain hidden and introverted like an idol, and man would live within his four paces in loneliness and fear.  The entire matter of belief is only in the relationship of traversing budges, and in these actions God must act in favor of man.  This is experiential, personal, subjective energy.

The confession of belief is liberated from man's communication with God.  Bridging bridges brings man to see meaning and understanding in the meeting with God.  That is, only by the 'bridging' method can Rosenzweig request a meeting with God as a living God which permits a true dialogue with man.  He is not willing to look upon God abstractly.  Rosenzweig must now take an anthropomorphic approach' " ...only by their relationship to creation, are revelation and redemption opened to them" (Naharayim 230), " …and God can be seen only in relation to other things…" (Star 168)

Which man stands at the most exalted spiritual level - the man believing in what he sees de facto, mediating his senses and mental conclusions resulting from concrete experience, or the man who dares to go beyond the domain of the concrete and looks to a broader horizon and makes a sort of leap toward that which has disappeared, a man not satisfied with restricted earthy vision? Clearly, the latter man is the more exalted spiritually and humanly.  This man paves for himself the  path to a direct meeting with God:

The thing has no stability as long as it stands alone.  It is certain of its individuality only in the multiplicity of the things.  It can only be displayed in connection with other things.  Its definiteness is a space-time relationship to other things in such a connection. Even as something defined, the thing has no essence of its own; it is not something in itself but only in its relationships. (Star 168)

The bridging method prepares the religious believer to experiment and strengthen his position in the rationalistic world of the past and the irrationalistic world of the present.  He bridges the two worlds and he is likely also to open the gate of the irrational world to those rationalists who want to enter and to supply the irrationalist part of their soul with satisfaction that they did not find in their rationalist structure.  Ha'Meiri explains Eccles 9:18: “[W]itnessing God believed makes the fool wise." That is, witnessing of God is believed, should be believed without examination and investigation, but after belief one would study the matter, which will bring perfection… from the aspect of study unattainable by opponents…" Ha'Meiri asserts that "there are no examinations and investigations,"[6] which assertion supports the a- rationalistic approach of Rosenzweig.

The new thinker "tells us how and when the distant God will approach (in the meeting), and how and when the nearby God will become distant .." (Naharayim 228).  Only with the God-man relationship does the substance of the meeting, in which it alone we are experienced, occurs, and bridges to God are made; all our attempts are attempts at bridge-building.  God himself, when we come to know him, hides; man, that is, our essence, confines himself, and the world is made an apparent enigma.  Only in their relationship, creation, revelation, redemption, is a resolution found.

The meeting is a product of the relationship between God-man and everything the soul learns results from this relational act.  And just as the soul abandons the body and has no existence in the framework of earthly life, so too belief, broken off from the intellect, has no existence in the societal, historical world in which revelation is fulfilled.  Therefore, the relationship comes as power of reality to effectuate the meeting.  “It is certain of its individuality only in the multiplicity of the things it is not something in itself but only in its relationships" (Star 168). The relationship gives eyes to see and hands to feel as primary conditions for the meeting attempt.  For it is the nature of the attempt to weave relationships between the elements, relationships whose essence is demonstrated in the garb of man.  The relationship of man-God teaches us that the origin of all genius lies in God's presence and His merciful creation with love. In the present the bridge between God and man allows man to understand his meeting with God as a meeting full of life, love and certainty.  The bridging only brings forth that which is present to be revealed, as from the potential to the kinetic.

Only "the attempts at bridge-making" (Naharayim 230) indicates active content, a function of occurrence, and not a merciful act of God.  This is the foundation of the belief orientation in the meeting: its content, dynamic, is circulated to the elements, man, world and God, and gives them the power of occurrence.   Bridging indicates action and not intensive study.  The bridging does not clarify how to construe but rather clarifies the loftiness of the existing elements in the prior given domain of experience. The raising of the elements moves by stretching bridges between the elements, and belief has the function of perceiving the matters one after the other and in conjunction one with the other.  Such a perception leads to religious consciousness, in which is found the singularity and merit of the belief orientation.  Language is the communication model; language serves as a model to orientation of time past - belief.

Language is the concrete expression of the meeting, not because of the individual  contents of belief or the foundations of belief represented by it, but rather because language itself is the model of belief.  Just as the miracle "is really the favorite child of belief” (Star 131), so, too, does language bear within it the stamp of that marvelous event, the dialogue between man and God.  Language is an organic part of the meeting , the first portrait of the face of revelation, and thus the contention that language is an organ of the meeting is strengthened.

But there is a distinction between the language of logic and the language of the meeting. The logos (the intellectual element m the rational world) of which we were acquainted in western philosophy is "silent" in its essence. "To think means to think for no-man and to speak to no-man" (Naharayim 231).  Therefore, the thought is not conversation; it is, at best, the elements of the concealed of the conversation.  Contrarily, "language is truly God's gift to mankind although it is the common property of mankind, in which each man has his particular share, and finally, it is the seal of humanity in man" (Star 206).

The principal intention of Rosenzweig in stating these words is that one would not see in religious language a tool or instrument which permits the expression of the principles of belief which human consciousness best contemplates in abstract terms, but language is the original symbolism of the reality of belief.  For "it is difficult to believe in a path, in that we look always at those specific points which we actually live...language reveals to us from within the minuscule point of the miraculous, which is felt in our experience, the complete path of our belief” (Star 148).

There is no difference between mythic language and religious language par excellence; language does not recognize the basic duality between a foundation of "external," objective objects and an internal, subjective foundation. In language there is a total comparison between the manner in which it is heard and the manner in which it is spoken.

Man cannot demand mental sense from language, but language demands spiritual content from man from the beginning of his creation and experience.  Words of language are a gift of God to mankind, a sort of "garden which surrounded man from the beginning, and he does not know from where he came to it" ("The Existential" 8).  Words are not the creation of man, for man is man in that he already speaks.  It is impossible to describe man's consciousness without language.  One must agree that the elements of language were not solved by man's consciousness. This dovetailing of language and meeting is the symbol of the concealed clement which is revealed at the meeting:  "The human word is a symbol; with every moment it is the beginning and because it already bears in its womb every speaker who will one day effect the miracle of renewing it. But the divine word is more than symbol: it is revelation only because it is at the same time the word of creation (the concealed element of God.)" (Star 148).

The Power of the Orientation

Traversing the bridges results from the feeling of certainty of the occurrence of the meeting. Man dares to jump to God only from the feeling that God will respond. This is the heartfelt desire of the believer, a feeling of trust, truth and honesty. Only with the power of certainty does he have the courage and audacity to remove the shame of the past sin, shame which prevented him from being happy in the bosom of his lover and totally devoted to him. Only at the moment his certainty emerges with the favor of God's love can man come to the meeting with God; only then can he confess. The heart and soul in man give the great and most certain hope that the favor of love will emerge and flood the waiting soul.

Without the hope of this certainty, he would not confess at all. With assured power, the soul fulfills what was done prudently in the past in the mirror of the actual and most real meeting. The certain hope that the favor of his love will emerge raises in the heart of the soul the certainty that God will listen to his response, that he will feel his love when meeting him.  "However now (that the soul admits 'I am yours') he must admit ('you are mine')… Experienced belief only comes to rest in this certainty of having been long ago summoned, by name, to belief” (Star 214-215).

With the power of certainty man communicates with God, and with this communication and only it, God becomes not only a 'He exists,' a product of the knowledge of creation, but even belongs to man individually and forever, as a lover in the sense of 'I am yours.'  In being loved, I know him as a lover. God, my love, is truly God and even more than that. In God's response 'You are mine,' it is as if the soul senses that he drew a protective circle about its steps, liberating it for prayer.  The prayer is the conclusion of the effluence of total certainty in the divinity: "Prayer is the last thing achieved in revelation. It is an overflow of the highest and most perfect trust of the soul" (Star 215). This is the certainty based on the verity of the divinity, that it is not only the man who loves but is even "veritable man" for” the seal of the Almighty is verity."[7]  "It is impossible to arrive at belief orientation other than by truth" (Nahman 166).

Rosenzweig maintains that God loves the soul, which is deficient if it does not determine that He is God and the truth, that "He is the God of truth." It is written in the Zohar 3: "There can be no faith without truth." The truth, rooted in internal certainty, provides living substance in man's meeting with him, not as a mere beloved but with a certain essence: "veritable man." "Just so the soul becomes certain in its belovedness that the God who loves it is truly God, is the true God" (Star 213).

Rosenzweig emphasizes the certainty in stages: First, man is learned in objective knowledge. With this knowledge, his intellect indicates that God can be described as present. For only one defective in his senses will not see the living evidence surrounding him of a thriving, marvelous world which has a creator. This stage is summarized by Rosenzweig as "positive history" (Star 215).

The second stage to the certainty is the self-experience.  After the soul attained happiness by admitting its sin as current sin, only then does the soul achieve complete certainty which will follow directly the happiness of knowing it is beloved. And with this certainty, the soul is calmed, knowing that evil will not come to it.

The soul can roam the world with eyes open and without dreaming. Now and forever it will remain in God's proximity... Now it knows: it need but stretch out its right hand in order to feel God's right hand coming to meet it. (Star 215)

Its belief comes to rest in the divine proximity of unconditional trust, with whose strength God endowed it....

The completely pacified belief, the soul's acquiescence in God's “Thou art mine," the peace which it has found in his eyes - these remain, after all, the last thing which belongs entirely to the realm of revelation. The dialogue of love ends here. (Star 216)

However, belief about which Rosenzweig speaks in regard to the meeting with God is not a frozen, Jewish theological concept, a product of the past, but its purpose is pure, human action which is manifested in a certain manner of conduct and stands at a different level than belief which affects the relationship between man and his fellow man.  We live always in the light of belief and in mutual contact with others daily. Generally, we trust our fellow man and act pursuant to this trust.  Human existence, according to Rosenzweig, is in belief orientation, the belief of active man, of man who turns to God from whom he receives, as well as to his world to which he gives.  The matter is explained by the reliance on God and the overwhelming security in him and the way of life which results therefrom. This meeting belief bond draws a link of belief to the world, to all mankind, and is the means by which he becomes human. Now one can say: the veritable existence of man in his perfection is the existence of belief orientation.  The man who has great belief in God's justice is himself a just man. The man who completely trusts God's righteousness will also be righteous.  And man who meets God is the man who in the end meets his own essence, the verity of his soul.  So:  "It is not God that need cleanse it of its sin. Rather it cleanses itself in the presence of his love...This certainty comes to it, not from God's mouth, but from its own" (Star 212).  "God himself, when we come to know him, man's essence hides... " (Naharayim 230).

This strong bond between the conduct of man and his belief is manifested in the Hebrew root 'aman'  (aleph  mem ,nun, from which arc derived faith and training. The man of belief is also a man of training, and only a man of training can be considered a man of belief.  The man who lives in belief orientation rises to the level of a free man.  "In the materialization of the revelation everything becomes free… " (Star 220). He does not live according to his intellect and its necessities. The belief orientation in the meeting liberates man from the burden of determinism.  Man becomes complete man. "The purpose of our philosophizing is not to become philosophers, but men.  Therefore, our philosophizing must acquire the dimension of humanity" (Rosenzweig, Briefe 718). Rosenzweig focused belief orientation in man himself, in his experience. The enormous belief in God makes him a man in training, and the Almighty, as it were, trusts in him, and he trusts in the Almighty.   Abraham is a classic example of such a man, and of him was said:  "And foundest his heart faithful before thee..." (Nehem. 9:8). One who does not have a God is not one who does not believe in God, but is the one who has no faith. He belongs to the category of those of whom it is said: "children in whom there is no faith" (Deut. 32:20). For "the just shall live by their faith,"[8] in the words of the prophet Habakkuk (Hab 2:4). Belief, which comes from the heart, leads one to faithfulness, which results from an act of the intellect.  "Thus the attribute of faithfulness endows the soul with the strength to live permanently in the love of God" (Star 203). If we continue with this realistic line of thought, we will of necessity conclude that the existence of the meeting ultimately implies the idea of the existence of God, humanity, which is explained below. The term "personality," is seen by Rosenzweig as a word which expresses the form of the most elevated existence which he knows[9]. When Rosenzweig speaks about God as a living personality, his intention is that He is not mere strength He is not strength or law alone.  At the moment that we take from God the desire, purpose and personal attributes of lover, worrier etc. which comprise personality. He becomes a god pre-meeting who has ears and will not hear and has eyes and will not see. Thus, religious philosophy has no meaning without the assumption of a "human" God and the spiritual world has no meaning without the recognition of the existence of personality behind the framework.

Rosenzweig now must use an anthropomorphic approach. Since the revelation with God from man's side is a fact, a fact based on belief, man can receive this revealed God only by his own means, which are anthropomorphic, and not by means of the intellect.  "We can see, hear, speak, scorn and love only because God sees, hears, speaks, scorns and loves" (Naharayim 35).   Attributes of action vitalize the personal experience about substantial, existing truth. The anthropomorphism gives also to God in the meeting, in addition to his attribute 'present,' the description 'action' and makes the meeting with him dynamic.  With this communicative certainty, puzzles arc solved; the bond is vital and communal.

Rosenzweig justifies the use of anthropomorphisms for the faith experience.  "Man created for himself God in Ins image" (Naharayim 35. 37).  Nevertheless, we cannot say that God has eves, ears, mouth, etc., and not because He deserves less respect in seeing, hearing, speaking, smelling, but rather because there is a lowering of honor in the phrase "he has." We do not know what God is or what He has. Everyone who wants to know this attempts to describe Him, to restrict Him. Rather, man must trust completely in God's boundless strength, which is encompassed always within man's "corporeality" and "spirituality." In the experience of belief orientation one may see God as personality only so far as the living bond in which he shows himself as personality. For the experience is not in some thing but in the meeting. "Every place there is something to see, God's eye sees it; man reads - God lends an ear; man listens, man shuts his ears - there are those to whom bursts forth the voice from the mouth of God, his hand extended for assistance, the hand of God will grasp" (Naharayim 37).  None of this compares God to any being or form, but comes "to trust boundlessly - his strength to meet with our corporeality and our spirituality always, with the corporeality and spirituality of each created being at all times; to meet with body and soul, with the image of the body and the image of the soul" (Naharayim 37). Without this effort of trust, "to believe that the experiences of God in which man participated in reality, comes to him from God in reality and directly" (Naharayim 38), monotheism is harmed, for alongside God, all of whom is essence and who is inanimate, religious consciousness demands that God will be closer to man.

Rosenzweig finds in biblical thought the means of a certain, human manifestation of the meeting.  The attributes of action vitalize the belief experience of the meeting as substantial, existing truth. The meeting is entire and substantial, "the fulfillment of the promise made in creation" (Star 146).  The certain, objective events come only at the revelation in the meeting.  And knowledge of the past provides belief its momentariness. It sees the meeting in the mighty factuality of a historic event, and this is the solid, objective element of belief orientation. The opposite is not, then, between belief and fact, but rather they are two domains.  One cannot prove a thing about the other, but it can support the other. With this certainty, his belief comes to rest in the language from Genesis "you are mine" (Star 216). The history of Genesis taught logically that the entire creation is certain attribute of God as present and unimpeachable pure object. And from this objective consciousness it dares with all the certainty of the soul to come "from acknowledging the past and includes acknowledgment of the present, and his doubts are removed… certain it is of the response that will come such that it does not need to hear it… certain as if God were whispering in its ear… 'I forgive'…, at the moment it dared to confess it was certain of his love" (Star 212). "...And it emerges into complete and confident submission… that he whom the soul experiences in its love really lives, that he is not merely illusion and self-delusion of the beloved soul" (Star 213). Only in this certainty of the present in time past is it called truly by the name of belief orientation, and experiential belief finds its rest.  Rosenzweig in effect answers the question that Moses posed to God: "And Moses said unto God. Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?" (Exod. 3:11). In this verse, Moses asks if it is possible to use a conception based entirely on the past in order to execute with its assistance undertakings in the present and future.

Rosenzweig, by the strength of certainty in his heart, does not need to prove the existence of God in the meeting with man, since he assumes the existence of God, as he assumes the existence of man and the world.  He relates, with total realism -- philosophers would say with naive realism -- to the existence of God in the act of meeting. If we use Mt Sinai as an example of the certain realism of Rosenzweig, his intention becomes clear.

The miracle of Mt. Sinai is not only that God spoke - objective fact - but that he opened the ears of the children of Israel, and they heard God speak to them. The children of Israel not only heard a voice, but they were certain they were standing before God and that the voice was the living voice of God speaking to them, and not various thunderous sounds. We determined above that the People of Israel heard God speak to them, from which we understand that the revelation then was inherited by the entire people. Clarification of this point is necessary because it contradicts Maimonides' claim that prophecy requires a natural aptitude and specific preparation, without which it cannot occur. Maimonides explains (The Guide 2:32) that at Mt. Sinai, too, there were various degrees of attainment and perception of the revelation.  The entire people only heard the voice of God, that is, the mere, simple voice without the articulation of the letters, and Moses passed on to them the words stated by the voice and explained their content.  Another explanation of Maimonides is that those present in fact understood the meaning from the mere voice, but only the meaning of the initial two commandments since these two commandments were capable of being deduced (see, Abarbanel, who is perplexed by the explanations presented by Maimonides in part two of chapter 32 of The Guide, which contains many unclear points). The revelation of Cod to man at the meeting by its nature was not designated to supply neither metaphysical knowledge nor empirical information, but it directly embothes the certainty: "It is certain..." "complete and confident submission." "... truly lives." "... a visible reality..."; "Experienced belief only comes to rest in this certainty of having been long ago summoned, by name, to belief (Star 212, 213, 215). The meeting is not the source of some experimental information whose element is sunk in the experimental-scientific cognition, but it is certainty which provides reality with a firmness which no cognitive action can provide it. Philosophy will reach, at the most, contingent knowledge, whereas the belief of the encounter will lead man to the desired certainty - the soul and purpose of the religious philosophy of Rosenzweig and, it may be said, of the framework of his life itself.  Glatzer describes the disease and terrible sufferings which Rosenzweig bore, though they did not break hiss mighty spirit. The certainty of belief of his philosophy maintained him. Notwithstanding his bodily paralysis, he lived an active life, marked by a wealth of spiritual creation. Rosenzweig wrote many essays, to enlighten and clarify, the logic of the fundamental philosophies of Star of Redemption, wrote a broadly encompassing introduction of the Jewish writings of Hermann Cohen, filled with biblical commentaries, participated in the writing of the entry 'Bible' for the Jewish Encyclopedia in German, translated the poems of Yehuda Halevi from Hebrew to German and added annotations, and devoted himself, together with his friend, Martin Buber, to translating the Biblical text. Confined to a chair and his 'four handbreadths.' Rosenzweig encircled the world and that within it,  manuscripts laden with his glance, and continued to see his creative works while his wife 'read' his words from his moving lips and eyes (His Life).

The belief is that God met man and gave him the gift of his love. If man admits this not only in his consciousness but also identifies with it with all his being, he has attained the belief orientation of that of time past. By the strength of this faith, man lived the past in the present. This is also freedom: " And injected into the reality of revelation, everything gains that freedom…" (Star 220). Man is free, not living according to the restricted intellect and compulsion, but. he is open to the God of spirit and the soul which broaden his knowledge and experience. (compare Post Scriptum, 50) And more than anything, it is security, the certainty of "walking humbly with thy God." "He hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God" (Micah, 6:8)

Everything regarding the certainty of the meeting is as if God speaks from the throat of man (Star 185). Revelation of his actual love proves the belief orientation of walking humbly and innocently with God and with the security that everything is in the present, and that there is no place left for purposes and conditions. Not "doing justice and loving mercy" is the apex of the confrontation which lies rather in the security in God , man located, independently, within the domain of divine truth, in which the 'way’ and the 'life' are already united.

Rosenzweig uncovers the principal attribute of the life of faith in Judaism - certainty - and makes it the internal logic of "theology." The meeting of man and God grows from the experience of "walking humbly with thy God." With this attitude, Rosenzweig wrote his philosophy - the sense of the supremacy of belief over philosophical cognition, supremacy whose source is the certainty of the experiential sensation of the individual.

In summary, the meeting is a force which is incontestable, either by criticism, consideration or doubt. It is the reality of the augmentation of the triangle - man, God, the world; belief orientation is the realization of belief founded on objectivity of factual events in history and thereby "we make belief wholly the content of knowledge, but of a knowledge which itself lays its foundations on a fundamental concept of belief” (Star 141). Belief, whose source is objective, continues to the present in which it is revealed as subjectivity of the revealed. In the certainty of the meeting, man attains unity of the soul, the calm and security needed to provide health and a feeling of strength in the manner that Rosenzweig attained them in the most difficult time of his life.

Man in the universe admits that he cannot help himself, for otherwise, he would not reach his futile situation. He needs to meet God as he requires, needs to meet with a loving friend. And only with the strength of the certainty, the security and the innocence can he walk with God and meet him every moment, and thereby emerge from his terrible futility. This is "the highest bliss" (Star 212).

The Source of the Orientation

The origin of the feeling of certainty and realistic security is in the soul of man. The orientation of that of time past is rooted in the belief that its source is in the soul or heart of man. The experience that is in the soul of man is the focus and springboard to knowing God, acknowledging God and gaining nearness to God. But Rosenzweig says knowing God, and his intention is the bond with God, which is not an association with the infinite essence of God but rather an association with the image of God. "… also the higher world only knows what experience encounters" (Naliarayim 240).

Rosenzweig did not choose the path of moral understanding nor the path of conventional revelation in order to explain the meeting of man with his God. He chose a third path, that of belief orientation, whose entire source is in the soul of man. Rosenzweig tells us that each miracle of the meeting occurs from "a particular occurrence" (Star 133), from "personal credibility" (Star 134) by "the capacity for observation" (Star 134). Rosenzweig seeks to point to an internal source in the depths of man's heart which reveals to him the contents and framework of the meeting, which placed rationalism in the shade.

The soul which admits its being in love thereby attests most assuredly the 'being’of the lover.  Every acknowledgment of belief has but this one content: him whom I have recognized as the lover in experiencing my being loved - he 'is.' The God of my love is truly God… one's own experience of love must be more that an individual experience, that he whom the soul experiences in its love really lives, that he is not merely illusion and self-delusion of the beloved soul…The soul can roam the world with eyes open and without dreaming ...Now it knows: it need but stretch out its right hand in order to feel God's right hand coming to meet it. " (Star 213, 215)

We learned in Genesis that "God created man in His own image," and at the time of his creation, God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (Gen 2:7) And each morning we say, "My Lord, the soul you gave me is pure You created it and you protect it within me."[10] Surely the soul is the focus of belief orientation. However, this focus does not seek to nullify understanding. Rosenzweig raises in the meeting two separate paths. One road philosophical theology chose for itself, in which the intellect is the nourishing factor. The philosophy of religion walked the second padi, revelation serving as its basis. These two paths, according to Rosenzweig, complement each other, one nourishing the other, and neither can exist independently. Bergson, for example, states that in addition to the intellect, an additional attribute is needed to understand reality.  He calls this additional characteristic "intuition" (Introduction, 59). And what is the intuition of Bergson if not an echo of 'the concealed eye' of

Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (article 4), the prophetic sense, which he sees as the singular means to permit man to know his Creator.  Rosenzwcig joins intellectual history with the believing soul for a new orientation of the meeting.[11] He does not want to point out the limitations of the intellect while emphasizing belief but seeks only to reveal this intellectual cargo in the vessel of the believing soul. He wants to live the past in the present and not to add another new dimension. The matter is similar to a burning ember and a fire. The ember is the fixed objective fact of the past and the blaze is the renewed vitality of the soul in the form of belief orientation. Without fire, there is no ember, and without the ember there is no fire. The belief orientation is in effect the informative response to the unconscious portion of the soul, the irrational part.[12] This portion can nourish and satisfy only by irrational creations. And here man must leap the domains of the concrete past of rational experience and pass the intellectual border and uncover the way across this border. The ability to do tins is given him by the irrational part of the soul, religious belief.  At this bolder, the intellect concludes its task and, according to Rosenzweig, yields its place to religious faith - to orientation of that of time past. The border is the end of knowledge and the beginning of religion.  Man, whether rationalist or irrationalist, is a firm believer, but there are differences in the utterance of belief. Rosenzweig does not deny that the believer is also a rationalist in regard to historical appraisals in the world - he even accepts scientific and technical achievements and does not thrust them aside so long as they do not oppose his religious belief. But he does not stop with them, his soul needs more, it needs an irrational means to nourish its unconscious part. He finds these irrational means in revelation via his religious belief in his soul and in all that which derives from it, by obeying the Torah and its commandments and through prayer.

In his daily morning prayer, the religious Jew prays: "...give our hearts the knowledge to understand and to discern to hear, study and teach… " And he repeats it in the eighteen Benedictions: "Thou graciously endowest mankind with knowledge, and teachest reason unto mortal man. O may we be graciously endowed from thee, with knowledge, understanding, and discernment." It is thus clear that the religious believer wants his creator to understand the foundations of religious belief, he wants to believe with intelligence and understanding and not only obey mechanically the commandments of God. The assumption of believing man is as expressed in Psalms  --  "an ignorant man does not know, and a fool will not understand this" (92:7). Here is joined, then, understanding and belief of creation that Rosenzweig emphasizes in the looking-glass of the meeting. Rosenzweig does not leave man totally outside the domain of the world of understanding. He emphasizes further "that belief is anchored in history" (Star 134, Naharayim 207).  Rosenzweig broadens the experiential, historical horizons of the past beyond the rational domain and unites the two worlds together: "But the past only becomes visible to revelation when and as revelation shines into it with the light of the present" (Star 217).

The Reminder of Blaise Pascal: The Relationship between Consciousness and the Soul

Blaise Pascal, born in 1623 in Clermont, France, was a stimulating philosopher and mathematician. Students of Pascal in our times are divided in two streams - one religious and the other atheistic. The former deals with theological questions, such as the redemption of man, man's relationship with God, etc.  Members of this stream are the theologians Berdiaev (Russian), Buber (Jewish), Marcel (French), Franz Kafka and Rosenzweig. Pascal was numbered among the leading scientists of his time He died at the age of 39 on August 19, 1662. The sources he left us are the sketches he wrote or dictated in his last years.  These notes were published after his death under the title Pensées, and these are the principal basis for his being venerated.  Baruch Kurzweil wrote: "Pascal was the first existentialist" (92).

Blaise Pascal, one of the pioneering existentialist thinkers in Christian history, can help us understand the difference between the intellect and soul, or heart, of man. His influence was great, and Rosenzweig was among those influenced by his writings (L'Nochach HnMevucha 135).

A few days after Pascal's death, one of his servants saw something stuck into a bulge of Pascal's clothes. It was a small piece of parchment on which was written a text by Pascal as a reminder of the significant event in his life.  That text reveals to us the turning point in his life, and it begins as follows:

   In the Year of salvation 1654                                                                                                                                          

   On Monday, November 23, on the                                                                                                                                  Day of Clemence the Holy,                                                                                                                                                         About 10:30 in the evening until                                                                                                                                         About one-half hour after midnight                                                                                                                                   Fire!                                                                                                                                                                                           “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob”                                                                       Not of the philosophers and learned men.                                                                                                                      Certainty, certainty, feeling.  Happiness, peace.                                                                                                                  The God of salvation Christ                                                                                                                                                   Your God, your God. Ruth. (Toldot HaPhilosophia 192)

 He forgot the world and everything in it except for God.

We must consider the entire situation in which the religious event occurred to Pascal. He was one of the most famous and successful physicists and mathematicians of his time, who followed in the path of research of Galileo and Descartes.  What is the meaning of Pascal's turning against the God of the philosophers and to the God of the Bible?  The God of the Fathers is the living God; he is neither a philosophical principle nor an idea.  He is neither "the first cause" nor "absolute value" nor "moral requisite" nor "the highest essence." The God of the Fathers is our father in heaven, and we are his children, and we may look upon ourselves as his children.  He is the God who speaks to us; he is not the content or conclusion of some philosophical theory.  Rather, he is the God revealed to man, the eternal "you," and the relationship between man and God is that of "I" and "You," and thus man can also speak to God in the meeting, to pray to him as an outcome of the certainty of the meeting and even shout at him as an expression of the manifestation of the total acknowledgment.

We arc commanded "you will love the Almighty, your God." But man cannot love an abstract philosophical principle. At the major turning point in his life, Pascal found the way from the God of the philosophers to the God of the Fathers.

The function of a philosopher like Pascal is not to show the way from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to the "pure" God of the philosophers; rather, His task is to show man the way from the God of the intellect to the God of the soul and the heart.  Pascal wrote: "The heart has its reasons which the mind knows not of." He also wrote: "the heart, and not the intellect, feels God. This, then, is the essence of belief. God is that which the heart, and not the intellect, feels" (HaSechcl UaRoeh 124). The two paths complement each other: "The intellect and the heart are like gates, through which truths enter our soul, but only few of them enter via the intellect, while they burst into it in large numbers via the daring desires of the will without thought lending its advice" (HaScchcl HaRoeh 49-50).

HakTav HaKabbala reinforces the conception of Rosenzweig:

For knowledge itself is not sufficient at all times, since the knowledge and intellect of man changes according to the circumstances, and in bad times his thought is not clear and he can easily come to doubt these verities, and belief alone is not superior, for in sectarian matters belief alone can not help. Belief assists knowledge, and knowledge supports belief, and each one needs the other. He will not flee from inquiring into the verity of his faith, and surely also, what is lacking in his knowledge and learning will suspend that which is lacking in his knowledge, and strengthen his belief.

Regarding these two requisite conditions, knowledge and faith, the rabbinical sages called them "truth and faith" in the blessing following the acceptance of the yoke of the kingdom of heaven, truth being the knowledge of the verity of the historical traditional texts to researchers of the heart, and faith the knowledge of the verity in the present by the acceptance of our fathers which is in our hands. Rosenzweig states:

Only in this backward glance does the past prove to be the base and prediction of the present experience, domiciled in the I… That which sounded in advance out of that all-embracing, lonely, monologic 'let us' of God's at the creation of man reaches its fulfillment in the I and Thou of the imperative of revelation. (Star 217)

This "let us make" of Rosenzweig is wholly human and its entire source is in the heart and soul of religious man.

Summery

Franz Rosenweig believes revelation is an individual, not group phenomenon. It is not experienced through the physical senses; it is through orientation and cognizance of every created matter and being in existence from the Creator. Once an individual is willing to give deference to his irrational nature, he can experience God at a high level, unfettered by restraints of rationale. His faith supports and reinforces the meeting. Its foundation is in the knowing objectivity of the past, and it is manifested as experiential, subjective "orientation" of the present. This link, between the factual past and the believing present, is created through the certainty that the God man loves in truly god, and this certainty's source is in the soul: "For it is the soul and not the intellect that feels God."

דף הבית

God always loves only whom and what he loves, but his love is distinguished from an "all-love" only by a Not-Yet: apart from what he already loves, God loves everything, only not yet.  His love roams the world with an ever-fresh drive. It is always and wholly of today, but all the dead past and future will one day be devoured in this victorious today.  This love is the eternal victory over death.

 ______________________________________________________________

 Franz Rosenzweig, Star 165

INTRODUCTION

 God is concealed behind His own creations and His laws.

 Rosenzweig noted that God hides behind His creation and His laws, thereby keeping man from knowing the purpose of His rules and actions.  He gives man obstacles to recognizing Him.  This makes for a complex and fascinating relationship.

 Prior to the act of creation, God was a hidden, silent God who related to neither man nor the world.  This God served idolatry as an assumption fixed in structure and form.  Therefore, Rosenzweig states, "God was not given the significance of the God of truth but rather of false gods" (Naharayim 239).

 With the act of creation, God begins to be revealed, a "beginning of knowledge" (Star 173).  But the "beginning of knowledge," according to Rosenzweig, is not knowledge of the purpose of His acts and laws, for "silence is praise unto Thee" (Ps. 65:2), "for there is not a word in my tongue" (Ps. 139:4), "truly my soul waiteth upon God" (Ps. 62:2), "but is knowledge of his love for man which fills man's soul with certainty and as to a soul which is loved.  Thus, "we know about everything but not in the same degree" (Star 212-213, Naharayim 224).

 "God created, that is the novelty.  The nut, as it were, was broken.  What we knew of God before this was of a hidden God, who hid himself and his life within his mythic sphere, in a fortress… this God, of which we knew what we knew, ceased to exist.  The God of creation is the beginning" (Star 199)…  "A beginning of knowledge without bringing everything to a conclusion in it" (Star 199, 173).

 Maimonides, in The Guide to the Perplexed, explains why man is limited in knowing the purpose of the laws and acts of God.  Knowing about God, Maimonides states, is knowing that you know nothing about Him.  Events should not be attributed to God, for that is the way of nature, amplifying the simple Godly essence, turning a subject to subjects or events; amplifying His attributes amplifies God's essence.  We draw the attributes from human experience, and there is no comparison between the creator and the created.  Yet, Maimonides attributes to God, following Rabbenu Bahchia's definition (Havot HaLevovot Ch. 6), action, and he endeavors to prove that these attributes of action do not comprise amplification.  Also, he permits negative attributes, which God does not possess, for behind the negative lies a positive perfection, the same attributes on a higher form.

 In Chapter 70, explaining the word "chariot," Maimonides states:  "As the rider rests on the chariot, separated and outside, so is God outside the world, separated and above it.  And just as the rider uses the animal as the tool and moves it, so does God activate the upper sphere… and by his hand turns the entire world, and the upper sphere is nothing but God's tool, for He causes the whole world to move, moving with the movement of the upper sphere, which surrounds the entire world, activated by God."2  "Master of the Universe, Who reigned before any form was created… will reign alone."3  Rosenzweig strengthens the explanation of Maimonides:  "Even by the recognized cunning knowledge of thought, we can comprehend nothing more in God…" (Naharayim 225).

 God hides behind His creations and His laws and thereby safeguards the knowledge of the purpose of His laws and acts.  Man, therefore, finds it difficult to recognize Him, making the relationship complex and wonderful.  But Rosenzweig does not keep man bewildered by the booming silence as does Martin Heidegger.  Rather, he opens for man the "beginning of knowledge" deep in man in order to know God.  Heidegger maintains that you have no choice but to live, though the single reason for your living is to run towards the possibility of death (Vorlaufen in die Moglichkeit des Todes").  Man dies because he knows of his death, and he lives within that consciousness.  Therefore, our existence is existence towards death, in his words: "eigententliches sein zum Tode."  Contrary to Rosenzweig, who attempts to disclose to man the ideal solution to the fear of death and cessation in the love of God, Heidegger's thought plumbs the depths of death, according to Heidegger, is in man's being concentrated in it and not in his deviating from this reality.  The entire validity and significance of the possibility of death, according to Heidegger, is in man's being concentrated in it and not in his deviating from this reality, towards God, as Rosenzweig holds.  Our existence is a race (Vorlaufen), whose purpose is death; existence is tragic and fearful.  At the moment we are born we receive the death sentence; there is no alternative.  The fact that we now live and exist means that we shall die sooner or later.  And where were we before birth?  Where shall we go after death?  Heidegger answers simply since we see the vision of all this in existence, since it is before it and after it, that is, before birth and after death, with us, there is nothing (Being 296).  We live by chance, at a time and place not chosen by us (Being 345).

 This knowledge or "beginning of knowledge" draws universal significance from the fact that it is neither rational nor theoretical.  It does not relate to the reality of God or to his laws. It is knowledge that does not know it: For God is above all knowledge, definition and likeness; nevertheless, there is nothing more certain than the knowledge of God, a fact which makes the relationship wonderful and concrete (Naharayim 223-224,239).

 This important point will be elaborated in the discussion on faith in the chapter dealing with man's meeting with God. In that chapter, I shall attempt to explain the paradox of a hidden but revealed God. "The beginning of knowledge" is God revealing Himself but also hiding his essence, i.e., the purpose of his laws and acts. Rosenzweig states this clearly: "The subject matter of art two of The Star of Redemption is to show how and when the distant God approaches, and how and when the nearby God is made distant" (Naharayim 228).

 Thus, man can meet with God, though God hides behind the creation and its laws in order to test mankind and to distinguish between them It is as if God hides from man the way He governs and acts and makes it difficult for an to recognize Him in order that man can believe in Him and freely and willingly deposit himself in God's hand.

 Man alone is responsible for the prior conditions.

 Several conditions must occur before man can meet with God and man alone is responsible for realizing these conditions. He, man, determines if the meeting will ever occur.

 Man's desire and ability is given special attention by Rosenzweig in his explanation of the commandments in his article "The Builders": "Not on our will but on our ability does the matter hinge..." (Naharayim 88; compare Sacred Fragments 183). The ground-tone of man's ability underlies his entire Jewish perception and certainly his approach to the experience of the meeting between man and his God.

 Man's wanting to meet God does not insure his accomplishing His will. "The principal element is that through his ability, that will be done what he will do..." Similarly, "...it is not for our will or our knowledge to overcome our ability for it, and only it, chooses" (Naharayim 89). This choice of Rosenzweig results from freedom. Freedom is one of the central elements of existential philosophy. Will and ability are products of freedom in existentialist thought in distinction from Idealism, which places freedom in the creative spirit of man and Rationalism which bases it on the intellectual consciousness of the world. The existentialist wants to acquire for man and freedom designed for God. According to this theory, free man is a creature composed of good and bad, truth and falsehood. He alone gives significance to the world and reason to existence. He condemns or negates the world and proclaims its negation and insignificance. Man alone can pass judgment on that which is existing and found in the world. According to Sartre, man did not attain his freedom from external factors; man is free by nature. Freedom is a weighty decree which man cannot nullify. He has no choice but to be free (see L'Existentialism 64). Death alone releases him from freedom. Man is its prisoner as long as he lives and nothing during man's life can remove it from him (L'Etre 77). In man, the chosen ability determines what will be done without involving the will. Therefore, whether the meeting occurs depends on this ability, which rests in the soul of man. This soul includes defiance, pride and humility.

 Rosenzweig explains the combination of these constituent elements in the soul: "...it (pride) now becomes the first to emerge from the interior of the self to the exterior...The defiant pride of free will had amalgamated the existing character into a self" (Star 200). Rosenzweig explains that several of the forces which make man silently independent are revolt and imagination. Revolt: rebelliousness, conduct which repulses the decree of one who commands disobedience as in the incident of Adam and Eve. "They rebelled and grieved the Almighty."1 Imagination, whose origin is from the Greek daimon, satan, evil spirit, the devil, the evil inclination, in the sense of evil spirit.

             To say I am proud indicates that I have an independent essence which emerges from my internal singular unity of my free will.  I can be proud of this, for it is mine and I acted to cause it; it did not result due to some other external cause, but rather solely from the inner strength of my ability.

             Only ability demands that man act; it is the essence of his independence, the truth found deep inside his existential soul: "… the act- the act of jumping… jumps and moves to the spark from I must to I can" (Naharayim 89).  The pride in man's soul is proud of this truth.  The responsibility and determination of ability is realized vigorously even when Rosenzweig discusses redemption of the world, in any event in the first stage, as the work of man and his will (Star 236-281).  In summary, man determines, which means that each act of truth must result from an individual's ability buried deep in his soul and his total seriousness; otherwise, Rosenzweig maintains, man will make of himself a lie: "… and falsehood in performance is the dangerous lie… that performed should not respond" (Naharayim 90).  "Truth becomes certain when it is appropriated by the individual, when it is verified in the person's life experience.  It is then a truth for which one must live…" (Sacred Fragments 179).  Thus, man meeting his God is an act of ability and not just of will.

             Rosenzweig holds that the Jewishness of each Jew is subject to his decision and determination, and that the major decision comes when he meets, or does not meet, with God.  This view, beyond history and time, is tied to the ever-present longing for eternity, and possibly results from the Rosenzweig's personal life. He also chose, at one of the crucial moments in his spiritual life, Judaism.  Characteristic to his perception was his answer to the question of whether he uses the phylacteries.  He responded: not yet (Briefe 428).  One can understand that he "still" cannot.  It was similar with regard to writing on the Sabbath, which at a particular moment, as a result of various forces, he decided to refrain from doing, and succeeds in not writing on the Sabbath (Briefe 593).  "He kept a kosher kitchen, but he ate non-kosher meals outside his home at a particular period in his life.  He wrote to his wife: ‘We want to build a house and not a ghetto.  Every Jew can eat at our home; but we also want to eat at the home of a Christian friend when invited to dine.'  On the other hand, he demanded a non-Jewish friend who stayed with him on the Sabbath not to use the telephone.  To one of his friends he wrote: ‘Wait for the moment of desire in your life, in which the new and the strange will be natural and close to you.'  Also, Friday evening without Kiddush (sacramental blessing of the Sabbath) could be at the beginning of Friday evening, when you invite a friend to dinner and conversation."2  Rosenzweig sees in the a bility of the individual a source of responsibility and means to determine in all his deeds and actions.  He transfers this from the individual to the Jewish people, stating: "When you are a Jew, I am God, and when you are not, it is as if I am not God" (Star 203).  When you are a Jew in your acts with Me with all your ability, then I am an existing God.  The saying is well known: in the next world they will not ask me why I was not someone, but they will ask me why was I not Zusia (myself)?

            Each and every person has a special talent, buried in him, which only he, through his ability, can realize.  Man's meeting with God is one of a thousand possibilities with which man is bestowed by God; only through his ability can he make that meeting occur.  Nothing else can fulfill it.  Man's ability makes him choose and creates responsibility (Star 208).  This responsibility is one of the prime marks of recognition of existentialism: man bears responsibility always, even when he does not know why. The concept of responsibility fills an honored role in the existentialist philosophy of Sartre, Heidegger and others. We are responsible because of the freedom engulfed in us. We are responsible for everything other than responsibility itself since we are the reason for our existence. We are abandoned in the world, forced to bear the yoke of responsibility without being able or having the possibility of being freed of it. We are responsible even for the lack of exercising responsibility. One who flees from responsibility flees because he chooses to. Heidegger maintains that the need to emerge from isolation is the push which frees one from the concrete responsibility of free choice, individually, from the knowing silence of man in his private world (Being 127; L'Etre 641).

 Rosenzweig's allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs clarifies in a more concrete manner how man is responsible and determines whether a meeting with God will occur. In the beginning, man cannot meet God, nor does he desire the meeting: "I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on?" (Song 5:3). Man is unable. He understands well, possibly in his sub-conscious, that opening the door is likely to raise many obligations and responsibilities and even a change in his way of life. This cognition frightens him, and he manufactures reasons not to open the door, such as: "I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?" (Song 5:3).

Eventually, he decides to meet God, but he is not certain that he can do it: "I shall rise please" (Song 3:6). This man cannot sleep; he rises from his bed and takes the initiative: "I shall go to town, to the market and streets--I seek that which loved my soul" (Song 3:2). He sought love in every place and corner, requested it but did not find it. "We found the guards who wander throughout town -- did you see that which loved my soul? (Song 3:3). He does not give up, but he gathers his strength and continues to search, following up every possibility.

 The soul did not yet take full advantage of its potential. It wants very much and does what it can to fulfill its goal, and its hour arrives. "I almost passed it until I found that which loved my soul! I grasped it and did not let it go until they brought it to the house of my mother and my parent's room" (Song 3:4). That is success! A success which required all of a soul's ability to meet that which loved his soul, everything being dependent on him alone, only on the eternal ability and the individual, enormous efforts of man..

 Man determining the meeting is not sagacious; rather, he is naive, like a person unashamed, unfrustrated, uncalculating and without mental obstructions This is the man who God loves. The New Zohar states: "God said to man, until now I had tried by toil, from here on, you will" (Gen. 5). God tried by the toil of choosing to love man to a certain point, from there on many must desire it to the extent of his ability, and only by this pure ability will he attain God and build his personal path, for "The end of all the sons is to be builders" (Naharayim 89). So Rosenzweig asserts, and he brings the Talmudic Brachot 64a saying: "Don't read 'your sons'3 (in Hebrew - "Bonayich") but 'your builders'" ("Bonayich") (Naharayim 90). So, too, man will determine in his way the manner and form of the meeting with his God, a determination containing the spirit of spontaneous Hasidism. The Hasidic movement was referred to as the "insurrection of the common people." The mutiny rebelled against the strict values of the Yeshiva students (Beth Y'Israel 77--85; Ashcoli 86-93). This perception was explained in Rosenzweig's letters in the arable of the landscape and the road. At the time of the completion of the Talmud, Judaism had one common path. There were also small paths and alleys and bridges, but essentially there was  one road, one Jewish tradition. This road has not existed for 150 years. "

Though the path of pious Judaism remains, it ceased to be the primary way. At the most, it is one of many paths. There remains only the one common landscape, which is the aspiration for the reign of the commandments. Possibly, there will again be one path, or a network of paths leading in one direction, but that time has not yet come, and we can only guess what will bring it to us. Each and every one of us must pave his particular road and prepare it for future generations. Each day each of us does his own Shulhan Aruch, his own way of life (Briefe 426). Being made in the image of God, man must adapt his way; like God, man, too, must toil and cooperate with God in bringing about the meeting with Him. ("...to simulate the acts of God,"4  which summarizes his break book, Morei Nevuchim) And "if he did, he is blessed, and if not, he is not (yet) blessed." (Ps. Midrash on chapter 53)

  THE CONDITIONS

 A. The Exclusive Characteristics

 Only the gifted meet God

 He must learn the meeting with God through arduous intellectual and spiritual study and discipline.

 Exclusivity is a prior condition of the revelation of God. If this condition is fulfilled along with the other conditions, there is a possibility that God will be revealed. To Rosenzweig, exclusivity means genius of the genius or, phrased differently, the gift of the gifted (Star 23). This exclusivity is explained using the example of art, which prepared man for the meeting with his God:

 If there were no cobblers, men would walk barefoot, but they would still

walk. But if there were no artists, mankind would be a cripple. For then it

would lack that language prior to revelation whose existence alone makes it

possible for revelation one day to enter time as a historical revelation and

there to prove itself something that has already been from of aye. (Star 221)

 This exclusivity is also a property of prophecy, which also has prior conditions that enable the prophet to communicate with his God. But there is a substantial qualitative difference between prophecy and revelation as Rosenzweig knows it. It is true that prophecy comes from the word "to prophesy," a thing (utterance of the lips) which is a sort of conversation as revelation shows, yet there are any differences.  Only Moses merited speaking with God without an angel as intermediary, as it is said "mouth to mouth I shall speak.."(Num. 12:8) and "God spoke to Moses face to face" (Exo. 33:11) "and the similitude of the Lord shall be behold" (Num. 12:8), meaning that it is not parable but he

sees completely and without enigma. The other prophets see in dreams, in night visions and in the daytime when they slumber ["in a vision to him I shall make myself known, in a dream I shall speak..."(Num. 12:6)] The prophet perceives via parable, and immediately solves the arable in a vision of prophecy and knows what it is. An example is the seething vessel and almond stick that Jeremiah saw (Jer. 1:11,13). In revelation, everyone can speak with God when his time comes. The prophet does not mediate between God and man, he does not receive revelation in order to pass it on; rather, the voice of God sounds forth directly from within Him, God speaks as "I" directly from within Him" (Compare, Star 210). Prophecy is designed to mend society. Elijah the prophet and the students of Elisha acted to distance the people from the false god and bring them to serve God and obey the Torah. They show Ahab the path he should follow in order to vanquish his enemies.

 Revelation primarily comes to transform the individual in the bountifulness of the love of the Creator and only thereafter does redemption of the world follow, though on a different plane and manner than that of prophecy. Revelation as seen by Rosenzweig is not an adjustment of the people enthralled from the beginning by idolatry, but is for man as individual, to adjust this soul and grant him certainty--love, God and the closeness of God.

 Prophecy obfuscates the lucidity of man--his thoughts are ravaged, as it is said of Abraham: "And fear and darkness fall on him" (Gen. 15:12). In revelation, man's mind is clear; he hears God and answers the command of his love like man speaking to man. Most of the prophets were not particularly excited about bringing the word of God to their people. On the contrary, the prophets fought with the spirit of prophecy which rose and were vanquished by it against their will. Often, the prophets became wretched because of it, Jeremiah among them. Revelation, though, is a great benefit to man in which God flooded the soul of many with love of the security of support, and the soul is blissful in gaining the love of the lover. "Prophecy is found only in a sagacious, heroic and distinguished person."5  Maimonides quotes this Talmudic saying to teach that there is a need for perfection in attributes and learning.

Only the skilled or gifted meet God. The meeting is not intended for all mankind, but for the individual, not for everybody, and not to everybody equally, but to those whom God arbitrarily chooses: "For God will always love him and that which He loves.."  (Star 221, 197-198) This arbitrariness does not result from pressure or force of the tendency to proclaim himself. "The love of God loves who it will love and wherever it will love.. no permission is given for any question to be asked, since questions often receive answers, for he, the questioner who imagines that God's love abandoned him, will be loved by God" (Star 197).

 The "gift of the gifted" ultimately comes to everyone. Thus, Rosenzweig instructs us that God's love is acquired in the course of time, and it will come in time to everybody. We are upset by the "muscle display" of this love at the meeting of man and God, which muscularity chooses the gifted before others. Rosenzweig responds: you have no right to ask questions, your turn will also come. Today you feel ignored and abandoned, but God will love you also. During the course of eternity, then, each and every one of us will attain the gifted status and subsequently God's love because "love is nothing but God 'not yet' loving everybody except for those whom he already loves" (Star 197-198).

 In effect, Rosenzweig does not provide a recipe to instruct one how to become one of the happy-chosen of God who has gained God's love. He only says to us 'not yet'. Each person at some time in his life can meet God, experiencing pure love, "for man comes from God, and his end is with God" (Naharayim 147-148).

 Being "gifted" is a process created in man's life by the choice of God with the steadfast effort of the chosen. "The genius is not born a genius..." (Star 223). The gifted, chosen by God individually must gain the meeting with God, "for no existing genius is stopped…(for) when the genius awakens, the opus (the artistic creation) too begins to appear" (Star 223). The gifted must try to endeavor to improve by means of spiritual and mental studies and discipline: "...(the gifted must) improve himself...for man is not ready, he neither sees nor hears; how will he attain God's love?" (Star 200).

 Man's closed world, a property of the creation of man, states Rosenzweig, must be opened initially in order that he hear the word of God and see the brightness of his light (Star 187,200). Mentioning the verb "study," Rosenzweig suggests that learning results from mental and spiritual studies.6  The source of hearing of the word of God is through an internal mental-spiritual process and not via a mechanical act, physical as it may be. The gifted, being a chosen gifted, des not complete his toil; he is only beginning the task for which he was chosen: the meeting with God. "God said to man, until now I had tried by toil, from here on, you will" (Zohar, Gen. 5: ).

 Rosenzweig believes that the gifted person must improve himself before receiving the love of God. But in what way or manner can man reach the goal set for him--the meeting with God? Because man, the fruit of the period of creation, of the act, "is made"; "mythic man, is man belonging to the language of the indicative, the one sided-monologue. He is an introvert, and cannot yet open his mouth; he fears that God will not respond with his love to his confession. But can this state of introversion show signs of life at the coming of come communication with God? In any event, Rosenzweig is of the opinion that this situation must be resolved by the act of opening his closed heart in order that man "learn" to hear the word of God and see the brightness of his light" (Star 200).

 The function of art in preparing mankind to meet with God.

 Rosenzweig attempts to answer the question by pointing to art's role in preparing mankind for revelation, the meeting of man with God. Without the artist, mankind was defective, lacking pre-revelation speech whose reality alone allows the time-historic revelation.

 Revelation does not originate in the concept of creation; rather they are coeval. For Rosenzweig, revelation occurs unaided as in creation, emerging from the pre-aesthetic layer, private, individualistic, sleeping in man. "When the genius awakens, the opus (the artistic creation) too begins to appear" (Star 223). In other words, the completed artistic creation assumes a process of alienation of man from himself when that human wholeness foregoes itself in favor of a something (upon the arrival of the image of God in man who now stands opposite) which it itself does not consider to have proceeded from within it, but which it appears to confront and to inspire with life and spirit by giving itself away to it" (Star 223).

 Genius and opus (the artistic creation) have a common source, but the difference is that the soul of the opus is an enormous, magnificent revelation, completed forever. In creation, man is silent, lacking a voice to respond, and revelation ends his slumber. Man responds with a reply of confession. In the act "let us create man in our image, after our likeness..." (Gen. 1:26), God made man supreme by favoring him, turning man into a being of enormous potential, with a sense of conscious spirit, self-determination and self-criticism, talented and powerful; his position was only slightly lower than that of God (Ps 8:6).

 "Image is not a facial expression, but a semblance of the acts of God. As God knows and understands, so, too, does man, whom He gave wisdom to know and feel His love, and as God supplies food for all, so man loves, feeds his family, servants and animals, and as the creator built the world and planted and founded the terrestrial portions and the seas, so, too, man can build, plant, found and create. These traits, indicates Rabbi Donolo Shabtai Ben Avraham,((913- 982  ) in his work "The meaning of man is created in out image" [perush naaseh adam b'tzalmenu]" at page 8, signify truly the biblical phrase that man is created in the image of God.7 Rosenzweig reminds us that the origin of the material which became inspired, the image in dynamic activity, comes from the "whole man" (Naharayim 215) of "absolute empiricism" the man who is able to experience the absolute God, his final self and the world. Although whole man is also absolute, this absoluteness does not cause him to be swallowed up without God's end being achieved, i.e. in his opus, the meeting with God.

 Each side maintains its special character, and each speaks freely. The opus or "the image" arouses the love of man. As creator, the images rise from him, via freedom's path, to space. Along the way, man raises his image, containing the divine, to the space of his soul - his internal world. The genius governs the images that rose from within him, for God already chose him, and he will not abandon his chosen: "..for no existing genius is stopped...(for) when the genius awakes, the opus too begins to appear (Star 223).

 The creator is engulfed in love, which penetrates freely due to the knowledge and inspiration of that which is within ('his image'). A strengthening of the character of the personality occurs with the expression of the opus. Art, narrowly defined as the ability to create, does not arise from the wealth of the creative reality. In addition, perseverance is required; in Rosenzweig's words, diligence and observation are understood as mental, internal, spiritual perfection attained through study. Rosenzweig notes that "whoever relies solely on the former (inspiration) and expects everything from it is liable to experience what befell the young Spitteler, who did not dare to carry out the concept of his first opus for a full decade because he thought that had to come 'by itself' just like the conception" (Star 224).

 When Rosenzweig states "...when the genius awakes, the opus too begins to appear..", the meaning of awakes is this: the beginning of all diligence. Diligence is dedication of the genius burning with self-sacrifice, altering the man in him from pre-opus (the whole, pre-aesthetic) to that of creator. He must immerse himself in that lonely detail resting before him, for only the toil of shaping, the "toil of love" of freshness brings the creator to inner self-consciousness- the art in inspiration (Star 224). This awareness testifies to his dynamic existence, his genius as well as the act of creation.

 Rosenzweig uses terms and examples from the world of artistic literature to teach the reader. Rosenzweig was influenced by stories of the gods, heroic poetry, that formed the basis for creative works through the generations, such as the Iliad and Odyssey. The lyric quality of opening the soul, and in Rosenzweig's case, disclosing the soul, is characteristic of artistic literature of feeling and experiences of the artist.

 The artistic act is not technical execution of the picture created in his vision, but a primary process no less than the vision of the picture itself. The picture of the "model" is formed in the soul of the genius and from this soul the inspired picture arises. Rosenzweig refers to this as the most living revelation of God, and emphasizes that this process requires diligent study. In this regard, Mahnonides writes in the Mishneh Torah.8 What is the way to love and fear? When man will observe in his acts and

wonderful, enormous creations and see in them his wisdom that cannot be

measured and has no end, he will immediately love and honor and adorn and

long a great longing to know the great God...

 Both Maimonides and Rosenzweig point out that man must observe to realize the love of God, but Rosenzweig went further in presenting a meeting of man with his God as present, what Maimonides did not dare do, for, according to Maimonides, prophecy (revelation of God to Man) requires a natural talent and specific preparation, each of which Moses possessed. Not everyone can attain the perfection of Moses (see The Guide 2:36).

 Rosenzweig writes that the act of observation deepens with the basic phenomena of the cosmos which surrounds "the model" of the artist (Star 226). Observation brought Abraham to recognize the Creator, though not yet to meet him. The path of Abraham the artist are similar; each uses mental observation to attain closeness with God. This process is continuous and epic, the continuousness being called diligent observation (perseverance) by Rosenzweig. Continuousness is the requisite condition for the study of any art, as anyone who attempted to study art at some time in his life well knows. Since steadfastness and continuing observation and concentration are not common in our culture, Rosenzweig believes that only few have this trait, which results, as stated above, in the individual's meeting with "the model" of his work (Star 224). Indeed, without discipline, man cannot wait until "awakening the rejoicing of life" (Star 223).

 In his article "New Thinking," Rosenzweig emphasizes that man must study until his hour of readiness arrives (Naharayim 229). Preparation of the gifted for the meeting with God is not granted as an act of grace. Belief is not an act of grace, and the gifted does not come to believe because of this grace. The artist constructs his framework of observation during the course of lyric and epic time, and he is not born with an advantage of belief.

 According to Rosenzweig, man does not start to learn art directly or via a simple program, in particular since the goal is a picture which he cannot touch and feel; instead, the study is indirect, as it were, by "dealing with matters of content in their sweeping exposition, and it is not for nothing that one speaks of 'epic scope'…" Man must learn many other things - and frequently things which do not seem relevant, prior to commencing study of observation, concentration and discipline and the precision of art. "But content is not meant as something antedating the opus; on the contrary, it is only that which is all contained within the work itself" (Star 223).

 The artist is not born an artist, or is the genius born a genius, nor is the poet born with feelings and experiences of poetic effusions of sentient experiences. Discipline is necessary for the artist to create a living picture. When Michelangelo completed his sculpture of Moses, he hit it with a hammer, demanding that it speak; the creation became real and living. The crack in Moses's leg remains today for us to see (Lapid's Guide 65).

The discipline required is not limited to a specific artistic activity (however many hours a day it is performed), but of discipline in the entirety of the individual's life, twenty-four hours a day. The absence of discipline in one's life results in an absence of observation and concentration, and man is thus unable to see any order or hope in involving himself with his surrounds. Self-sacrifice for the sake of "aesthetic inspiration) (Star 222) is most difficult, and the average person cannot acquire the requisite patience, observation and concentration. Contemporary man today, created in God's image, thinks that he loses something - time - if he does not do something quickly, yet he does not know what to do in the free time given him.

 "But as artist, it [genius] must sacrifice itself to them (the external figures], passionately unmindful of self. Genius must renounce its integrity precisely for the sake of that which it is and which it seeks to become, namely: "originator" (Star 222-224). If art is not a matter of substantial importance, the student will ever study it. At best, he will be an exceptional amateur, but he will not be an artist. Self-sacrifice demands the dedication and strictness the artist invests in order to create the picture".. only so that he will cease to see it" (Star 222). Cease to see the erroneous "impression of nature" in order to make room for the sparkle of the vision which, according to Rosenzweig, is living and stands before him - inspiration. Therefore, the genius is "self-dedication of the genius..." (Star 224).

One who seeks to be drenched in the solitariness of concentration and observation knows the difficulty of attaining it. He will begin to feel uneasy, nervous and anxious.9   In using art as a preface to revelation, Rosenzweig seeks to convince the reader that all the efforts of his love are bound for failure, if he will not attempt with all his power to develop his entire personality to the extend of an artist skilled and gifted, who combines the aesthetic art, the plastic art of the lyrical, the epic and music (Star 221-229).

 Art thus becomes a special category of the world of revealed faith, not in the sense that religious revelatory faith transforms art, but as Fritz Kauffman phrased it: "The relationship between art to religion is realized precisely in that the aesthetic experience and the aesthetic design can be seen as preliminary levels of the religious position" (Das Reich des Schinen 182).

 Art, being rooted in the mythic picture of the world, is in reality executed in it - emerging from this self-seclusion for the meeting between men. Art will thus be a condition and primary image of revelation. Rosenzweig paves the way by disclosing the mutual and supportive communication of the mythic 'elements' to the 'track' of revelation. Music's rhythm, for example, helps us to feel the "revelation" of time-flow in a wink:

 This inspiring of the detail is the achievement of harmony. In

rhythm, the individual moment forms but a mute link in the whole;

harmony provides it with sound and life at the same time. It makes

it sonant in the first place and inspires it, giving it pitch, and

both at once, quite like the revelation which endows the mute self

with speech and soul at once." (Star 228)

 Every man has the option to wait until God calls him to be gifted. We must not lose hope that our time will come, for we, too, shall gain God's love. However, the man chosen to bear God's love is obligated and required to study long and hard to ready himself for the lofty goal of meeting with God.

 Art becomes a special category of the world of revelatory belief and its primary image and endeavors to let man emerge from his self-seclusion for the meeting with God and to prepare him for his link with his fellow man. Art is an image of the uniqueness and foundation of the gifted, an initial condition for the meeting between man and God.

LIST OF SOURCE MATERIAL ABBREVIATIONS

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper, 1962.

Being

Rosenzweig, Franz. Briefe [Letters]. Unter Mitwirkung von E. Simon ausgehwelt und hg. von. E. Rosenzweig [With the cooperation of E. Simon, selected and revised by E. Rosenzweig]. Berlin: Abkurzung, Br., 1935.

Briefe

Buber, Martin. "The Foundation of Hasidism." Beth Y'Israel b'Poland [Jews in Poland]. Jerusalem: Dept. of Zionist Org., 1954. 77-85.

Beth Y'Israel

Kauffman, Fritz. Das Reich des Schinen [The Kingdom of the Beautiful]. Berlin: Judischer Verlag, 1920.

Das Reich des Schinen

Bahchia, ben Yosef ibn P'kuda (Rabbenu). Hovot HaLevovot [Duties of the Heart]. Trans. Yehuda ibn Tivon. Naples: Depyre, 1890.

Hovot HaLevovot

Lapid, Yosef. Lapid's Guide. 10th ed., Jerusalem: Shkmona (1982).

Lapid's Guide

Sartre, Jean-Paul. L'Etre et le niant [Being and Nothingness]. Paris: Gallimard, 1948.

L'Etre

------. L'Existentialisme est un Humanisme [Existentialism and Humanism]. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Carmel, 1990.

L'Existentialisme

Rosenzweig, Franz. Naharayim [Selected Writings of Franz Rosenzweig]. Trans. Yehoshua Amir. Jerusalem: Bialik Inst., 1977.

Naharayim

Rosenzweig, Franz. The Star of Redemption. 2d ed. Trans. William W. Hallo. New York: U of Notre Dame P, 1985.

Star

Gillman, Neil. Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew. New York, Philadelphia: Jewish Publ. Soc., 1990. 178-183.

Sacred Fragments

Zohar, The New. Defier, 1591.

The New Zohar

Zohar, 2d ed. Jerusalem: Mossad H'Rav Kook, 1956.

Zohar

1 Moshe ben Maimon, Morei Nevuchim, ed. Shmuel Ibn Tibon, ch 2. Sec. 29.

2 S. H. Bergman. Introduction. Naharayim by Franz Rosenzweig 7-11.  See also Franz Rosenzweig. Briefe. 428.

3 "Ye are the children of the Lord your God" (Deut. 14:2). Compare Avot3A and Isa. 54:13: "And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of the children."

4 Moshe ben Maimon, Morei Nevuchima, ed. Shmuel Ibn Tibon, Ch. 53.

5 Moshe ben Maimon, Morei Nevuchim, ed. Shmuel Ibn Tibon,  Pt. 2, Ch. 32 and 45.

6 The perfection related to is related to understanding the pure essence of God, but instead is a means (and not an explanation) of arriving at the meeting with God

7 See, also, The New Zohar, Gen. 5; Rabbi Ovadish Sforno (1475-1550) on Gen. 1:27

8 Laws of the Foundation of the Torah, chapter 2, law 1.

9 See James Hewitt, Nature's Way with Tension, See also Lundberg, G., Human Values Research

דף הבית

B. The Characteristics of the Command

 The second condition for the meeting is the commandment to love God. When man learns to love God, non-egotistically, God can then respond.

 In order to clarify the second condition, the following table is instructive. It presents the place of the command "you will love" alongside indicative verbs, and emphasizes the resulting significance. It will also assist in our understanding of Rosenzweig's intentions in his discussion of the meeting between God and man.

 Table 1

Table of Verbs

  Notes to the Table

a) For the first time, among the past and resent tenses and the quiescent indicative comes suddenly the command: "let there be". "Yehi" is the shortened from of "ye'heye". "Vehi mah veyehi ma"  (2 Sam. 18:23), meaning: "There will be what there will be," or "what will be, will be."

 b) The significance of 'you will love' is inherent in the command or the language of command. The imperative is decreed from the word command, which is an order and decree: "For whereas he obeyed the command" (Hosea 5:11) or "He commanded Aaron and his sons" (Lev. 6:2); "As God commanded him, so he did" (Gen. VI, 22). See Even Shushan, 1125.

c) This is the response of the soul to God's command "love me" (Star 209--210). Response here means confession. The complete verse is: "I have sinned, I acknowledge to you, and my iniquity I do not hide", meaning I was a sinner (past); the soul paves the way to the declaration 'I sin' (present) (Star 214).

 d) "I sinned" bears significance beyond that of being only confession; there is also acknowledgement of God. "There is in this confession more than confession itself for the sin.. it is already acknowledgement of God.. if you acknowledge me, I am God" (Star 212). More on this, later in this chapter.

 e) Certainty which results from the confirmed reality of revelation: "As if God whispers in the ear of the soul "I forgive', I am yours" (Star 213). This is the end of the command "you will love", man, having come, responded to the command, passes from shame to happiness, from uncertainty to the total certainty of pure love.

 Explanation of the Table

The verbs "created" and "hover" are the first indicative verbs appearing in the Torah. Indicative means announcement, statement story, a sort of declaration of thought. The way of the indicative is the form of the verb in the past, present and future tenses -- I wrote (in Hebrew ), I write, he will write, as opposed to that of the infinitive -- to write , to write, or the imperative write!

 The function of the indicative is to present an idea or fact whose content does not require a special reason to distinguish it from "an interrogatory", a "proclamatory sentence" or "conditional sentence." These verbs are objective, lacking inclination and biased feeling; they are "quiescent", therefore, they are expressed with the meaning and intention of "that one" or one seen from afar (Star 187). With these verbs, God speaks to Himself. The "impersonal" voice is third person, the ground from which grew the "I" and the "you". The voice of the he-she-it is the voice of the one created: "I called you by name" is the ground from which sprung "you are mine" or the I-Thou of revelation. It is like a renewed birth, what was already born is born anew as a revealed entity. For, as Rosenzweig writes, "the lover who says 'Thou are mine' to the beloved is aware of having begotten the beloved in his love...For that which is grounded in a past is, in its presentness too, a visible reality (of the living dialogue of I and Thou), and not merely internal" (see Star 215).  Rosenzweig then defines the he-she-it and I-Thou r "I called you by name" and "You are mine" as "a relationship in the world of things"(Star 215).

 Let there be ("yehi"): For the first time in the Torah, among all the past and present tenses of indicative statements appears, suddenly, the imperative: Let there be. The verb is presented, in Rosenzweig's words, "with the suddenness of the imperative." "Yehi" is the shortened form of "ye'heye," whih is the future tense, though stated in the manner of the imperative (and therefore, though not in the grammatical sense, it is not indicative; "Yehi is an objective verb; that is, it is unrelated to personal involvement, and thus is spoken in the impersonal. But with this verb God speaks to Himself. It is impersonal speech of God, but His words re not yet heard, as if someone were speaking in the "impersonal" and not, he, himself. He does not yet speak himself, his essence does not speak.

 Let us make: For the first time in the Torah, an objective law is breached. And from the mouth which alone speaks, for the first time in creation is heard not the "impersonal" but the first person "I", and even "you" together with the

"I and you." However, here the "I" speaks to himself in the "I" of "Let us make." Rosenzweig states that the verb 'let us make' is not objective. For the first time in the story o creation we hear, not the "impersonal" language, but the clear and directed language of "I" placed in the future. Yet, God still is speaking to Himself.

 You will love: "Ahav" is the word used in the Torah. "You will love the Almighty, your God, with all you heart and all your soul..." (Deut. 6:5). Instead of "you will love," it could have been "Love me!" The form is pure imperative and thus the language of I you for the imperative is the grammatical form which always contains both in tandem. Grammatically, the verb "veahavtah" is stated in the past tense, but has the clear meaning of pure present tense, such as "love me!" at this very moment.

 This command completes what has already commenced. "That which sounded in advance out of that all-embracing, lonely, monologic "let us" of God at the creation of man reaches its fulfillment in the I and You of the imperative of revelation." We now understand that the verb "veahavtah" has no relationship to the indicative nor to the terminology of objective creation, for it is directed to "you" and not to "that one." Everything belongs to a more advanced stage of revelation.

 With "veahavtah," God reveals himself to man only as a beginning of the way. And why is there, in this, revelation? Now the subject has a direct case - the nominative rather than the accusative case (Star 137, 210 217). The noun turns from object to subject and is no longer a thing among things. It is something individual (Das Man), or rather someone individual. The meaning of "Das man" from which results "the independent essence" ("eigenes selbsi"), that is, "being as its experience" ("eigentliches Dasein") is the mode of being of the existentialist.1 Rosenzweig calls the level of the imperative a sphere of hearing and absorption only -- God speaks to something; it is only a silent obedience to the demand of love. The soul is prevented from responding to the love. Why? It results from the uncertainty and doubt of what the response of God will be. The soul knows nothing of its fate and asks, "What shall I answer to the demand for love? I am enveloped in the disgrace of past sin, and maybe God will not accept my apology, my confession, and will not return l love for love notwithstanding his demand that I love." At this point, God has not yet proclaimed "I love you" (Star 212).

 The soul of man remains silent, ashamed for its earlier transgression which permits not a moment's peace. Lacking all trust, confidence and certainty of the fate of God's declaration, the soul becomes depressed and gloomy. This situation is concluded from the lack of certainty, qualms and doubt which eat away at every part of the soul and from the will and courage to acquire the love of God, for the soul must be saved from the shame of the past sin. All this worried the soul, which is helpless, depressed and fearful (Star 210-211). Lacking the faith that God will forgive him, he becomes melancholic (*in deepest darkness") (Star 211). The bothersome condition spreads throughout his soul, which flutters trembling, in a world of silence. It is traumatized and filled with self-loathing. This is based on Star, page 211, "The mouth has to acknowledge its past and still present weakness by wishing to acknowledge its already present and future bliss," and, on page 215, "Individually experienced belief had already found within itself the highest bliss destined for it. Now it also finds the highest certainty possible for it... Now it knows: it need but stretch out its right hand in order to feel God's right hand coming to meet it." It follows the command in bewilderment, seized by the suffering of his past sin, and seeks God's assistance to gain respite.

 And suddenly, the radical, psychic "shock" comes as does the shout, a massive burst of feeling -- the soul dares to admit its "frailty." It says, "I have sinned," and confesses its present sin. There is no longer a past sin. The soul say, "I was a sinner," and now, "I am a sinner,"changing from the past to the present tense. In this manner the soul overcomes shame and insecurity, and becomes confident that God will forgive it as if he had said, "I forgive." The dialogue is realized. "I have sinned" should be read "I am a sinner," with 'I' being the basic word of the dialogue"... (for) God speaks as 'I' directly from within him...Only an 'I' and not a 'he', can pronounce the imperative of love…" (Star 210). This stage marks the admission of real love, whole love, the end of the command "you will love" and its perfection. Since the imperative "love me" in fact cannot remain imperative alone because a response is required, Rosenzweig maintains that the obedience to the commandment cannot remain mute. Therefore, the commandment can be seen as complete only with a response, the first stage being "I sinned." It is true that, theoretically, the commandment is only the first part which states "love me", but, as noted above, practically speaking, it can be seen as complete only when the response is given, thus effectuating the commandment, ,and not letting it remain in empty space. The soul, at the last stage of the prior conditions,  is on its path to attaining the happiness of being loved.

The above table and subsequent explanation depict the place of the commandment "you will love" and several focal points of the commandment.

 These foci serve as a basis for the detailed discussion of the second condition to man's meeting his God.

 The discussion of the characteristics of the commandment will be divided into a number of sections:

  Investigation of the parts of the commandment; "you will love" in its total    construction.

  Time within which the commandment is valid.

 The subjective side of the command.

  Its singularity in comparison with other commandments.

 Can love be commanded?

 1 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 282,219-226: "Der traditionelle Wahrbeitsbegriff und Seine ontologischen Fundsmente." See also, "Investigation", 22-24, 39-40.

 LIST OF SOURCE MATERIAL ABBREVIATIONS

  Rosenzweig, Franz. The Star of Redemption. 2d ed. Trans. William W. Hallo. New York: U of Notre Dame P, 1985.

דף הבית

Investigation of the pats of the Commandment "You will Love" in its total construction.

1.The Parts of the Commandment

I divided the commandment into two parts. The first portion describes the solitary "I." The commandment "love me" is not yet understood. Man lacks the capacity to love and contains no essence of love; he is all ears. The commandment is the first content to drop into this attentive hearing. The summons to hear, the address by the given name, to 'you', the seal of the discoursing divine mouth – all these are but preface to the complete content of the real essence: love. In this "preface," the first part in my terminology, what can the soul say in response? For there must be a reply. The obedience to the commandment cannot take the form of muteness. It, too, must become audible, become word. For in the world of revelation everything becomes word, and what cannot become word is either prior or posterior to this world (Star 208-210). Perhaps Rozenzweig's reference is to death as he quotes from the Psalms

: "The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence. But he will bless the Lord from this time forth and for evermore, Halleluia" (Star 280, from Ps. 115: 17-18). The dead cannot speak; they completed their task with their death.

But the soul remains silent and does not respond, for it has not experienced love, and that period of not being loved, of lovelessness, seems to it covered in deepest darkness. There exists a lack of trust and doubt of the lover's love. It is true that God speaks in the manner of one who demands love, yet voices no indication of his love by saying, " I love you."

 The origin of the darkness, Rozenzweig believes, is in the past and only the past, because the sin dates from then, a sin which continues to flood the soul with shame. As long as man remains tied to his past and the "darkness," he does not yet have the strength to speak what is in his hear with confidence, but continues to have doubts in his heart as to the response he will receive, since, as was stated in the first part of the commandment, God demanded the soul 'to love' with no accompanying declaration from God of His love. In this portion of the commandment, the soul seriously doubts that it will receive response or confession.

 In its entirety. The concluding part instructs man in anticipation of the acknowledgment. Nothing short of the acknowledgment carries the soul into the bliss of being loved. Previously, all was lovelessness. Hence, it is not easy for the soul to admit, for in the admission of love, the soul bares itself, and to bare oneself is not accomplished without difficulty.

 In this part, the soul wants to be loved, but finds difficulty in acknowledging the dark past in which there was no love. In the first part, the soul encountered no sweeping shock or agitation. In the second part, the soul had to receive a shock to become the beloved soul. The soul, in order to become beloved, had to exchange the shame which blocked the beloved mouth that whished to make acknowledgment. And for what was the shame exchanged? Rozenzweig answers: "For current sinning, not for a 'sin' committed in the past…" (Star 212). The confession relates to the present, meaning that it is certain of God's love, as certain as if God had spoke into its ear, " I forgive."

 It is as if the excuse to flee the responsibility resulting from past sin prevented the soul, ashamed of its sin, from facing the sin in the present, which is the actual and real time. The soul preferred to remain in darkness like Adam hiding from God in order not to answer for his deeds, or those of the serpent. The more the soul fled from the sin into the past, the more embroiled it became. Only the removal of the sin from the past into the living present resurrects the sin but at the same time causes the shame, which gnawed at the good in the soul and distanced it from God, to die; such a process is comparable to the  psychiatric techniques of freeing one from guilt by resurrecting the sin, thus making it current and destroying the negative causes of past disgrace.

 Thus, Rosenzweig states:

 Past sins are confessed altogether only for the sake of yet present sinfulness, but to acknowledge the latter is no longer to acknowledge sin—this has passed like the acknowledgement itself—no longer to acknowledge the love-void of the past. Rather the soul says: even now, even in this most present of moments, I still do not love nearly as much as I know myself loved. (Star 212)

 Distancing myself from love in the present and the knowledge that I am loved by God are real assumptions of the actual present moment. The knowledge that I am loved replaced the remoteness from the present and removes the burdens of sham for the sin which led to the uncertainty and lack of faith in God and the inability to head God's voice saying " I forgive." The soul says how remote it is from loving (because I am a sinner), but it knows that it is loved, and this acknowledgement is already the highest bliss for it, for in encompasses the certainty that God loves it.

Undoubtedly, in utilizing the concept of raising past sin to the present in order to treat it, Rosenzweig was influenced by psychiatry courses he took as a medical student prior to becoming a philosopher. Man removes his past sin by acknowledging, and to acknowledge he must overcome the shame of the sin, an act which can be done only by admitting the he remains a sinner. The past in his consciousness did not enable him to speak his heart with confidence, and he doubted God's love for him.

 In the last part of the commandment Rosenzweig shows the great power of though, the power which enables man to actually hear God whispering into his ear, " I forgive": "..it (the soul) no longer needs this formal absolution. It is freed of its burden at he very moment of daring to assume all of it on its shoulders."

 2.The irrational as a source of self-persuasion and influence.

Rosezweig certainly perpetuated the power of the " mental" act that exists without our knowing it. It is deep within us, yet does not affect out individuality. Just as the discovery of America moved the center of gravity of the old world to the West, so too, the discovery and freeing of the mental power, "the irrational," will in the future likely move the center of gravity of man's life from the cognitive, conscious layer of understanding to the subconscious status of pure belief that inheres in the soul of man. The unrecognized term " the irrational" was borrowed from his correspondence with Rudolf Ehrenberg dated November 18, 1917 (Naharayim 205).

 This is not the place to discuss this complicated subject. An investigation into the unconscious or "the irrational" would require its own treatise, in which various explanations would endeavor to free their elements from theories changing day to day. But there is a body of facts, proven by experience, about which there is no dispute, and this body of facts enables us to understand Rosenzweig's position vis-a vis the concluding part of the commandment "to love." Two questions relating to the source and form of Rosenzweig's treatment of the subject, assist in understanding that position:

 1) What is the source of self-persuasion or internal, absolute conviction that God, as it were, declares when he says, " I love you" or whispers in man's ear " I forgive"?

 2) In what form does the soul convince itself ( or more precisely, man's consciousness) spontaneously, to throw off, the compulsion of the shame and pass its entire self over to love? For only yesterday there was "darkness," " doubt," "lovelessness" and suddenly there is a radical change to total confidence and "true bliss" (Star 226, 200, 212-213)

 Rosenzweig responds to the first question by referring to the soul. The soul is the source of the self-persuasion or internal, absolute conviction. And what, then, is this soul that serves this promising function? Rosenzwig answers:

 The soul is the image of God. "Defiance and character, hubris and daimon had merged in him and had turned him into a speechless, introverted self" (Star 200). " With a resemblance to God, with a personality not mediated through generalization of category nor necessitating multiplicity, with a self. Something new has dawned. But something more than self too—a soul? He is created speech-less" (Star 188) "Were the soul a 'thing', it could not be faithful… it derives from the self of man" (Star  203).

 The soul is the power which generates our life: " Now that he emerges from himself, the forces that formed him are disclosed again…pride is… primarily, the beginning of the emergence…" (Star 200)

 The soul is the seat of feelings, the activating force: " An awe compounded of humility and pride, together with a feeling of dependence and of being securely sheltered" (Star 201).                                                                                                                

The soul is the origin of memories. It knows each and every detail, registers every movement that one takes and every though that one has; therefore, it is even a source to learn from, an experience which ultimately is our experience as wel as of our fathers. Without this important information, the artist cannot attain inspiration for his work. ( Star 219, 227).  The inspiration requires the completeness of all the details and only wealth of memory of the soul can supply it.  "The lifeless image now becomes itself filled with the life which it hitherto only aroused in the spectator ( the unconscious), and thus it comes alive ( conscious). Now it can open its mouth and speak" (Star 201). Such is the essential, real man of Rosenzweig.

The soul is not static, but rather exceedingly dynamic: " He breathed the spirit of life into his nose…," " filled up that life with power… and it  lived…it can speak" (Star 201)

 The soul is mysterious, with many details and explanations of it being not within man's understanding.  "Humility is..an altogether essential attribute for him who has it, an attribute in which he moves because he simply does not know differently any more" ( Star 201). Few people know why they do one thing rather than another; they usually do something the correct way when relying on the soul; when they permit the conscious to intervene, they err.

 One who relies on the acts of the soul, on its singularity as the source of power and material, has already completed most of his work. This fact brings Rosenzweig to the feasible conclusion: " And gives (man) to be borne on it…it knows that no evil will come to it. It knows that there is no power in the world that can steal its consciousness" (Star 200). For it knows the soul (the unconscious) is more correct, knowledgeable and absolute than the conscious.

 The soul supervises the physical process: digestion, absorption, blood flow, actions of the kidney and lungs ( it is true that these processes are controlled by the brain, but the intelligence does no do the work; rather, it is the soul, the unconscious): " After the reversal that occurred in him, he felt agitated, but also bears the fear  with trembling" (Star  201). The physiological influence of the soul is so great and real that one can open one's mouth and speak even with God: "It can open its mouth and speak" (Star 201).

 3. On the Source of Self-Persuasion and Influence

             Rosenzweig's description of the soul is in effect a description of the  "unconscious"; the two share traits which make them seem as one. On the existence of the unconscious, there is almost no dispute among the researchers, and the function of research and science is to conquer more and more of the domain of the unconscious of the soul and raise them to the conscious (see Bergman, 132; see also Gordon).

             "There is ‘in the intellect' (better we should say ‘of the intellect') something irrational, something not embraced by the concept of truth (since the truth is forever ‘conforming the likeness to its predicate')… something of the intellect that is beyond intellect (‘beyond' in the sense of logic), it is the unity of the two…"True, intellect is the basis of reality, but there is also reality in the essence of intellect" (Naharayim 207-208).

             Is it doubtful that every person struck with a club knows that the bones of the forehead are stronger and harder than the bones of the top of the head, or that a blow to the ears is more dangerous than a blow to any other part of the skull? In any event, when one protects his head with his hands, he protects the endangered parts and rests his forehead to garner the blow. Consciously, certainly everybody would not react the same way, and not everyone is capable or skilled to make that decision, but the unconscious assembles the memories and experiences not only of us, but of out father and our fathers' fathers, and during the course of many years, the defensive action became disassociated but, nevertheless, occurred, notwithstanding our will and conscious understanding.  Rosenzweig explains: "..for again he does not know any other way…in regard to man in which it inhabits, it is a compelled trait absolutely" (Star 201).

             There are many examples of Rosenzweig's "compelled trait." When a child flees from being hit and feels the first ready to strike, he will bend over, his back arched. Unconsciously, he will do what is necessary to distance himself from the attempted blow. When struck, he will bend his back like a car, symmetrically, by which he will protect his heart and lungs. When a person is stabbed from behind, the back will arch, causing the ribs to close together, slowing and restricting entry of the foreign object, sometimes making it impossible for the aggressor to remove the knife from the victim's back.

             The domain of the unconscious (the soul) contain a mine of information and memories that we would be unable to reach except by deliberation, experience, study and great toil: " It is that which emerges from the originator without his knowing how, the essential prerequisite of something greater... In effect, then, he regards it only in order to disregard it" (Star 224). Man has not other way but to "be borne on it" (Star 200).

 But the task of the unconscious is not only to record, remember and provide upon request; it also has an enormous creative capability. With its vast experience, it makes new combinations and performs much of our work which the rational mental processes of man cannot do: "and realization (the unconscious), that only in it do we find bridges on bridges all out experiences are those of bridge-making…(therefore) only by their relationships, in creation, revelation, redemption are they opened." "God and the world and man—this conjunctive ‘and' was the beginning of experience…it must be, then, that it is true in regard to something" (Naharayim 208,230,238).

             "The irrational," Rosenzweig states, is " the something of the intellect which is beyond intellect (beyond the logical) intending the genius of man's power of intellect by means of confirming the coordination of the image with the aspiration" (Naharayim 208). Therefore, it is no marvel that "we are able to do properly many things when we rely on the ‘irrational,' for the rational is not capable of performing them…" for only man through the last of all generations can confirm (Naharayim 238).

             That is, man must wait until the end of time before having the perspective to confirm or understand the "irrational" and its actions; of course, this understanding is beyond man's capability. We thus recognize that by permitting the conscious to perform our work, we err hither and thither. Also, we will not be able to locate the reason for the lack of success since the "I is impenetrable and silent and waits to hear God speak" (Naharayim 211).

             The intellect remains open-mouthed to the appearance of the problems of the human body and is lost in the fields of analysis, and each discovery only shows the depths of new secrets. There is no doubt that the ration is the mechanism most appreciated, the seat of logic and ethics, the source of understanding and appreciation of the artistic,. It is a machine, but not the propellant. It provides neither feelings, force nor energy. Those are provided by the irrational, for that is the singular artistic reality. In Rosenzweig's words: " this something of the rational, which is beyond the rational (beyond in the logical sense) is unity… it is reality" (Naharayim 208).

             The soul, the irrational, "contains a wealth of details…it becomes manifest only when and as the idea eternalizes the details…not for nothing does one speak of ‘epic scope'…" (Star 223). The man who is seen is the mask only; his actual personality lies behind the irrational or the soul in him. It appears that the irrational records each and every movement we make and every thought we think. In ascending the many steps, the irrational records the number of steps required to ascend one level, and just as we did not feel the matter being recorded, we also will not feel the use of its experience. That it actually counts, though not in the conscious language of number, is proven from the fact that if we want, we can also occasionally life this number from the unconscious to the conscious. One concludes that, on the basis of details of "epic scope," the unconscious learns from such experience. The unconscious is a power station:

 the strength to hold fast, which the beloved soul maintains towards the love with which it is loved, this strength of trust is drawn by it from the defiance of the self which has integrated with it. And because the soul holds onto him, therefore God allows himself to be held by it…It (the soul) proved to be a vital, creative force by tearing the lover's own love away from the moment and ‘eternalizing' it once and for all (Star 203).

             The soul is the dynamic force in our lives. The details or the memories are not mute like the marks on a phonograph record, they are vitally active, each one creating one thread in our personal yarn. The soul of the irrational does not rest, and is even more awake when the conscious is sleeping, at which time the soul's eye is ever more open, thus " imparting to it eternal being" (Star 203).

             And how can the soul, "the vital, creative force", rest for a moment? "Without the storms of defiance in the self, the silence of the seal in the faithfulness of the soul would be impossible". "It ( the soul) listens to the voice of God from nearby…certain of the love of God, as certain as if God had whispered in its ear ‘I forgive' …" (Star 212).

             "That His love breathed life into him testifies to man himself that he exists" ( Star 201). Rosenzweig explains that the soul brings man to a real, living happening between two living and existing realities. "Love is prevented from making an image of the beloved" (Star 197). Rather, it feels, storms, rests, breathes, hears, and listens to the love of the lover. Only the soul, or irrational, will fill the role of supervisor of the physical process which Rosenzweig emphasizes. The irrational takes part in controlling the digestion, absorption, circulation of the blood, activities of the lungs, kidneys and other vital organs. Our body is called a clock which if wound would continue to move on its own. All the processes, as complex as they are, rest under the management of the brain. Nevertheless, it is not the brain which does this work; rather, it is the irrational, which in this case is the unconscious. The though process itself and its contents are unable to determine the chain of electrochemical events which comprise life (Deliberations).

             According to Rosenzweig, therefore, the source of the internal self-persuasion of inspiration and realization of the concluding part of the commandment to love is the soul, or what cognitive philosophers refer to as the irrational or the unconscious.     

4. On the Manner of Persuasion of the Soul Itself

             The second question posed centers around the realization and inspiration of the soul. Rosenzweig responds with the saying" The conclusion of the act is in the beginning, thought" " Sof Maaseh B'Mahshava Tehillah)" (Naharim 231, from the poem " Lecha Dodi"). "It is your intention that something will emerge from the conscious – you must first put things into it, just like a cake" (Naharayim 238). Initially, one must bring in the "experience of reality" (Naharayim 238).

             The concept of verified truth is, as noted above, a cornerstone of this new cognitive doctrine. In this context, Rosenzweig states that philosophy cannot become enervated until it descends into man and becomes independent of it (the soul). Then "verified truth" occurs, bringing in conclusion, the following form of reality: A=B when B (man) recognizes his dependence on A (God).

             Now, the truth having been clarified, we can amend the true order of the three—God, man and the world. God, the God of the truth is placed at the head and only he may say "he is" (Naharayim 239).

             Rosenzweig speaks of two levels of intelligence. One he calls "cognition" and the other "experience of reality" ( that is, the unconscious soul) or "verified truth."  These exist in mutual, continuous activity. Just as every detail in cognitive activity is founded in the unconscious, so too every thought in cognitive activity descends to the lower level (‘experience of reality'), where it becomes an integral part of our being, or A=B in Rosenzweig's formulation (Naharayim 216; Star 212).

             Cognition takes energy from the unconscious and fulfills its function of caring for and determining out intellectual, conscious and bodily conditions. If the thought is good (God loves me), man is in "absolute bliss," and if bad ( the absence of God's love), man is solitary and abandoned, enveloped in a depression caused by the shame of his sin.

             This turning of though into an element of out lives Rosenzweig calls "experience of reality" (Naharayim 238) or in other words, spontaneous and positive self-persuasion. Since this is a normal activity of our brain, it will not be difficult to prove and confirm it by daily experiences (these examples do not concretize a direct, absolute experience of God, but they at least prove that the principle of the form on which the question is asked is acceptable). It opens the gate to understand Rosenzweig's method of understand the essence of the commandment to love.

•  In walking down the street in dismal temperament, you meet an acquaintance in gay spirits. His smile arouses you, and after speaking with him for a few moments, your despair passes and it its place you feel confident and joyful. What caused this change? Nothing other than the idea in your mind. Gazing at him, listening to his voice and observing his laughter, your conscious intellect involved itself with the idea of joy. And this idea, after it passed to the irrational was realized. For no logical reason, you became happy. "For not from the mouth of God came to it this certainty (certainty of love), but from the mouth of the soul (from consciousness via the irrational)" (Star 212).
•  You were visiting a friend at his home and listening to a frightful incident of the dead rising form their graves. Late at night you return to your home. The fear described in your imagination became real in the irrational; you walk hastily past dark areas and seek the lit path and are ecstatic when you arrive at your home. It is the same path that you walked many times in the past, nonchalantly, but the pleasant associations are now forgotten, and the most normal objects are now foreign and frightening. The internal power of self-persuasion cannot turn a pole into a walking corpse, but it they easily cause impression, all of your sense impression will be distorted, items will be given unnatural proportion and routine objects will become frightening.

 In each of the above examples, the concept of a mental state – joy or fear – is that which is presented to the brain and made real. When thought arrives at the irrational, Rosenzweig calls it "reality" (Naharayim 208). That is, you were, indeed, happy or afraid. Now, therefore, we understand the second part of the commandment to love, which maintains that " the beloved no longer needs to acknowledge the love of the lover… is it as certain of his love as if he whispered its admission in its ear..This acknowledgement is already the highest of bliss, for it encompasses the certainty that God loves it" (Star 212). This transformation from the past sin to present sin, which is the acknowledgment of love, is not in the domain of the intellect. The intellect of man plays almost no part, rather its principal occurrence is in the sense domain, the experiential or unconscious and instinctive. You were, in fact, loved: "…as if I knew that I was loved" (Star 212).

             This concretization of the essence of the commandment is love. From the moment it reaches the irrational and is received by it, it is made into a never-ending element of our lives: "Not the new solitary moment is that which gives it its presence but rather the eternalization of the moment; since it knows it loves ‘forever,' and only for that reason, does it feels itself loved every moment" (Star 201).

             However, it is easier to recognize the spontaneous, self-persuasion of Rosenzweig: "…from real word to real word," and "…as if God whispered into its ear…'I forgive"…" The result is bodily rather than mental, which is clear to use when Rosenzweig emphasized that "only by reflex action can we—and we are commanded even—to recognize the real world also as representative or part of its speech" (Star 217, 212).

•  Everybody knows what is called "stage fright." Its victim can be a normal person, mentally and physically fit. He can also have, in his private life, a sweet voice and be intelligent, a man of ideas with the ability to express them. He can also be confident that those who listen will support him and his ideas. But put him on a stage, and his knees shakes and his heart flutters; he does not know what to say or says too much, he cannot speak clearly, and after stuttering a few words, he must retract his words. The reason for this peculiar phenomenon is in his thoughts prior to his mounting the stage. He feared that he would be ludicrous, would be uncomfortable or perhaps that he would forget his speech or would not succeed in delivering it as he wished. These negative ideas, upon returning to the irrational became real. And exactly that which was received (in the irrational or the unconscious) came to him.
  
  
• There are people who suffer from St. Vitus's Dance. The disease causes them to contort their faces, twist their heads or move their shoulders. Others who come in constant contact with them, who live or work with them, are likely to acquire these habits without feeling it. The idea of this habit, situated firmly in their brain, becomes real and they begin to perform the same movements.

 Examples of the law described by the above examples appear everywhere. Did you ask why people faint when seeing blood or why we turn our head in looking from a lofty perch at that which is below? There are neurotics who lose the ability to speak or see and others who are unable to walk. Some suffer from disturbances in one vital organ or another. The reason is not something actual, but is the idea which becomes real in the irrational.

             The above instances of involuntary acts exemplify Rosenzweig's belief that " only by reflex action can we – and are commanded even—to recognize the real word also as representative of part of our speech" ( Star 207). But does this occur always or by chance only? Does the commandment to love occur according to this, and not another, universal law through self-persuasion by means of though penetrating to the conscious resulting in its final realization in the irrational?

             Sometimes love that is imprinted form the essence that is exterior to man only increases the hate in our soul, or joy which strengthens the depression we feel. There are persons who become angry when seeing another profess love to that one's beloved and are upset when watching a comedy on the stage. Doctors are able to listen to the sad and depressing afflictions of their patients without being moved. It seems as if there are contradictions in these instances. But they are nor, and they can be used to confirm the law mentioned above. Just as it was known to one of the great Jewish poets, who lets his friend respond to the king of the Kuzaris (Kuzari 5:27): "I see that you find my words heavy on you and light in your eyes" (quoted in  Naharayim  240).

             The doctor also, in listening to his patients, does not let these ideas inhabit the conscious brain. His thoughts immediately pass on to medicine, to the treatment he will proffer. He does not base his assistance only on hygienic actions, but also utilized the unconscious or the irrational or his appearance and his demeanor. Or he will concentrate his thoughts on the scientific matter before him, and then automatically relate it to the patient as a thing to be investigated. He does not fear climbing the rooftop since thoughts of the danger immediately yield to his knowledge of his head and feet being well placed.

            We have now arrived at a significant point in the process of self-persuasion, in the concluding part of the commandment of love which Rosenzweig attempts to explain. No idea presented to the intelligence will become real until the intelligence accepts it. This assumption is emphasized in his discussion on the ability versus the will in his article, "The Builders" which we shall discuss later. " True, intellect is the basis of reality…." This reality is the first stage of receiving the idea by the irrational…But there is also reality in the essence of intellect…which is irrational…" ( Naharayim 207), which then, makes the idea real.

             The second stage of the process of self-influence begins in the concluding part of the commandment. Man must know that everything does not rest in his intellect and that he is at all times opens to processes influenced by the understanding of new ideas; only by receiving such new ideas will realization occur. Rosenzweig remarks" …the concept of verified truth is made the cornerstone of the new cognition doctrine…. There is a man who never says ‘he is everything…' This thing is beyond their understanding ( of the scientific philosophers)" (Naharayim 223,238).

             The majority of the mistakes made by those holding the new philosophy in the field of reality result from their ignoring this basic fact. When a man suffers from severe pain, it does not help to say "it does not hurt you" or "in the next world you will receive reward for your suffering." The first declaration contradicts the facts; the second is so far removed from reality that it is impossible to accept. Man will refuse the attempt at this realization – the self-persuasion will confirm the fact of his suffering, but which the conscious will treat the pain and undoubtedly make it worse. This attempt at realization, which assumes "that all the rest, the world and God, already lies in man" (Naharayim 223), only reinforced the shame for the sin of the past; the soul cannot repulse the compulsion of the shame by giving itself over entirely to love" (Star 211).

             We can now formulate the fundamental law of reality: Each idea that comes to our conscious intellect, if received by the irrational, is changed by the irrational to reality, and from that moment is an ever present element in our lives.

             It is the process which Rosenzweig calls self0influence of love which comes "buy itself" and "cannot be previously assumed." It is the self-persuasion that God loves the soul and man and love is "nothing but fate…from ignoring everything that preceded it or that will come after it…" (Star 224, 198, 194).

             It is a law that man's brain is directed by it through the pat until the present: "it bursts forth from the suffering of the hidden God (the image, the irrational) to revelation (intellect)" (Star 194). The thought that God loves, held by the soul, determines not only the condition of our spirit, but out feelings and sentiments; "shock," "bliss," "agitation," "trembling," heartbeats, stuttering, blushing and other bodily actions are reactions to the state of "as if God whispered in its ear ‘I forgive,' and as if "bursts forth…the hidden God to be revealed" (Star 211, 212, 201, 194).

             The above phenomena of the body result from changes occurring in blood flow, activity of the muscles and the vital organic actions. These changes are not dependent on the will and intellect; they are conducted by "something which is beyond intellect…which comes as reality," and they will come by surprise.

             If we apply our conscious intellect to the idea of love, joy, forgiveness, support and good, and if we can also guarantee their acceptance by the irrational, they become real ("arrive as real"), and they are able to raise us to a new being based on the recognition "that (the sine) is present…. Again there is not acknowledgement of sin….There is no admission of the lack of love in the past….(but) the knowledge that I am loved" ( Naharayim  207, 208; Star 212).

             Rosenzweig's religious existentialism, which is an original method among religious, and certainly non-religious, existentialism, tries to overcome the lack of certainty that one can be beloved.

             The idea of love, which in the substance of the commandment reaches the brain, requires the emotional reaction of man, according to Rosenzweig. As the "shock"; -- the level of emotion which accompanies love---increases, so does the force of the self persuasion increase: "Thus a shock was necessary before the self could become a beloved soul…in the past there was a time without love…for until this moment it had not been moved nor gripped" (Star 211).

             Similarly, the moment one sees oneself at death's portal can change one's entire life. Therefore, one should not be surprised that Rosenzweig begins The Star of Redemption with the sentence: " All cognition of the All originated in death, in the fear of death" ( Star 45) and concludes it with the words: " into life" (Star 437).

             This emotional factor serves as important function in realizing the purpose of the commandment to love and to insure its acceptance: "the certainty that God loves you" (Star 212). The act of spontaneity is greater insofar as it touches emotion.

             The body and the soul work one on the other, like parts of an electric induction machine. Goethe stated that when a man laughs without reason, the laugh itself brings the person to a condition of joy. Goethe, who died almost fifty years before Rosenzweig was born, undoubtedly influences Rosenzweig. Though Goethe questioned the philosophy of Kant, his contemporary, each saw in man himself the creator of his life. Goethe wrote in his masterpiece, Faust, in 2832, "There are many puzzles will be solved." He placed in the mouth of Mephisto the answer: "But many puzzles also will be assembled there" (qtd. In Rosenzweig, Naharayim 240). " There" is undoubtedly the soul of man, the irrational, and the solution are the calming knowledge that many puzzles are assembled there.

             At the most difficult period of his life, when he was suffering from paralysis of almost his entire body, Rosenzweig instructed himself to use this power of self-influence. He continued to think and write at a time when he could move only one finger or one hand, which he used for typing his manuscripts. Courageous conduct, power of survival the battle against his illness only strengthened the proof of his methods of religious existentialism, which allowed him to believe that internal, spontaneous self-persuasion is the intrinsic, omnipotent divine power. Rosenzweig's cure was an emotional, rather than a physical cure, for he knew and read Faust:…"emotion is everything…" (qtd. In Rosenzweig  Star 221; compare Star 227).

 As far as we can see, acceptance or refusal of the idea of the knowledge "for I am loved" by the soul is irrational, dependent on associations linked to them. Thus, the idea of the absence of shame is accepted if it draws after it similar idea that require similar emotions. For example, " the acknowledgment ‘I am a sinner' removes from man his being a sinner in the past and removes the shame from him" (Star 212). Certain that God will forgive his sin, he does not feel the absence of love in the past, and the acknowledgement of the current sin in though already " is not an admission of the sin which became past as the sin itself…" (Star 212).

             On the other hand,  the idea of live is denied if the association are contradictory ideas, whose emotional load is of another type, such as: "…doubt as to what answer will be given to him…the soul, uncertain, wanting to make the acknowledgment, harbors doubts that its acknowledgment will be accepted" (Star 212). In the last case, the original idea of love is hidden by the associations, almost in the same manner that the chemical alkali can hide the presence of oxygen.

 You are on a boat traveling through stormy waters. You approach a sailor, and in a tone of voice sharing the difficulties, state: "Dear man, you are pale. Are you seasick?" He laughs or waves you away in anger, depending on his nature. He was not seasick because his associations are contradictory. In his mind, he is immune from the illness, he does not think of it as a threatening past (like the shame which enveloped man and depressed him), but considers it a present illness, and in the present he is also immune from it; therefore, the illness draws not fear or doubt of his immunity, but rather certainty ("it is certain of God's love").

 Continuing your tour of the deck, you meet a passenger whose countenance indicates dear. "Sir, you look terrible! You must be seasick; let me help you on your way." He pales, the word ‘seasick' raising in him ideas of fear and bad tidings. He accepts your help in reaching his cabin, and there his internal self-influence is realized.

             In the first instance above, the idea (shame) is expelled because the association (in Rosenzweig's case, love) overcame it; in the second, the irrational, because it was supported by similar ideas (the doubt of God's response, recollection of the sin, etc.) accepts it.

             As noted earlier, the function of feeling in the concluding part of the commandment to love is to ensure acceptance of the idea of "the love of God" by the irrational:

 …rather the concern is with that feeling which immerses itself into the individual natural form and transforms it, through the power of immersion, form a natural form—in and of itself but dimly visible, ambiguously unclear, aesthetically therefore invisible, and so to speak mute—into an artistic form which is determined, unambiguous, aesthetically therefore visible and so to speak eloquent. ( Star 227).

             However, in addition to feeling, there is another condition that ensures acceptance quite and rest. The means used by man to realize the essence of the commandment to live is the thought that the cognition must be silent until it accomplishes total rest: "…it necessarily emerges as serene diffusion…a pride which simply exists instead of distorting man's countenance with convulsive might…, which spreads out under and around man like the still waters…but a pride which simply is, in which man is at rest and allows himself to be borne, such a pride is, to be sure, the very opposite of ever-resurgent defiance" ( Star 200).

             Since it knows that love is "forever" (Star 200), constant rest, and not the rest of a solitary moment, gives it its strength. Realization of the concluding part of the commandment to love is, as stated above, one of a thousand possibilities man is given by God; yet, it will be realized only via a natural, spontaneous approach. And what is this approach if not the rest which grows from the ability of man in the framework of his will, Only the ability brings man to being chosen and into the sphere of responsibility: "Not by our will but our ability is the matter dependent" ( Naharayim 88). And "just as the cognizance of everything in the cognizance is not yet knowledge, do doing everything in the doing is not yet an act…the principle is – from ability will be done what will be done" (Naharayim 91). "We know only one thing, that we all have the possibility of ability" (Naharayim 92).

             Rosenzweig undoubtedly sees in the will an uncertain force, one that even hinders and causes delay. An attempt to force the unconscious or irrational to accept the idea by the effort of will and not by the intellectual capability will end in failure. Will is defined as a dynamic element in personality. We think it is possible, with effort, to encourage the will, to guarantee victory of one element of personality on the second, which opposes it. By means of the force of will we elevate ourselves, and thus crush the activity of the substantive, that is, of the understanding with the irrational. Only from the ability to think "will be done what will be done." With out hands we destroy the conditions which enable the success of realizing the concluding part of the commandment, and with the same hands we can cause it to fail.  The man who determines realization of the commandment to live is, ultimately, the non-advanced person, who lacks dynamic desires of energy, unsophisticated and naïve, "serene" man, entirely "tranquil" (Star 201,196).

             Rosenzweig thinks that he errs, who wants to realize the commandment to love: acceptance of the though and its being are fixed in the irrational, via effort of will, in order to ensure the victory of the one element in personality against htat which opposed it ( love versus the absence of love.) Man, whose entirety is ashamed of the sin of the past, thinking that God will not forgive him, will sit and convince himself that God will forgive him. Her attempts. By means of the efforts of his will, to force the irrational or soul to accept the though that God will forgive him and return him love. The effort leads to hyperactivity, and the association of the absence of love in which he is enveloped from the start appears by itself. And he starts to think the opposite of what he intended. Addition effort raises again the though of the "current sinfulness" (Star 212); there is certainty that he will forgive, but because he is present more alert, the opposite associations also become firmer. His thinking capability is the sole control in his brain, and an additional effort of the will cannot move it from its place. And, truly, anything that continues to rise up against it will only reinforce it. This phenomenon demonstrates the concept which Rosenzweig  describes in these words " … within one's ability, that will be done what will be done … (for) ultimately, not by our will but our ability is the matter dependent" ( Naharayim 88, 91).

             Some people argue that nothing can withstand the will, yet everyone must know that there are several things which withstand it. Who has not experiences a fearful thought which, though repulsed, returns quicker than it was expelled? The will is the power by which we force this thought or another within us for a period of time. But it is not the expulsion with governs, but rather the reality that is the thought. And what is that: an accurate thought.

             When taking examination, persons often encounter the dismaying experience of having all the information they have accumulated though study disappear when reading the exam  questions. Not one clear thought appears. It only remains for them to grate their teeth and call their will power to assist. However, when they leave the examination room, and the tension lessens, the ideas and information return clearly and strongly. Forgetfulness was due to the idea of failure, which the examinees nurtured in their brain prior to the examination, and the efforts of the will only completed the disaster.

             Rosenzweig states:"… a happy soul…all of it says rest." We must realize that so long as fear of failure follows us ("it still had doubt in its heart as to the answer it would receive"), efforts for the will will not bear fruit. The act will be effective only if, in place of fear or doubt, we bring confidence( "certain is it of God's love...as if he whispered in its ear…,'I forgive'") and a peaceful view of success rather than a fearful and complaining dread of failure. "...until he reaches total dedication from complete certainty…" And when is this "until"? Rosenzweig responds: "constant rest…when the hour will come, the wisdom will come" (Star 196, 201, 212, 215, 229).

             Success in the concluding part of the commandment to love is dependent upon the skill of a healthy intelligence in waiting; it has no "idée fixe" (Naharayim 229).  The soul will nullify its shame and attain the answer "I forgive" and knowledge "he is" ("My beloved god, he truly is God") only via the certainty which comes from waiting. He must continue to love; the hour will come, wisdom will come. This secret envelops within it all the wisdom of the new philosophy. It teaches, in Goethe's words, the ‘understanding in time'…" (Naharayim 229).

             Every effort to quicken the process of self-persuasion in the essence of the commandment to love is fatal. Every artificial attempt only hastens failure rather than success ( as stated by Rabbenu Haim Ben Atar, who lived in Jerusalem approximately 250 years ago, in his book on the Torah,  Ohr HaHaim). An order of redemption of Israel is hinted at in Lev. 25, and Ohr HaHaim enumerates three factors for redemption: 1) the merit of the righteous men and the people, 2. Suffering, and 3. Redemption which is not dependent on merit. So, too, realization of the commandment to love requires restful waiting, with which it will succeed. Only if the brain concerns itself with the positive ability of thought rather than effort of dynamic will will the commandment be realized to the extend of its realized capability: " My beloved God, he is truly God" (Star 213).

 5. Time and Unity in the Commandment "You will Love"

            As shown above, the present time, and only the present time, is the most significant and important factor that characterizes the command. Every attempt of reconciliation with the past only immerses the soul in doubt, uncertainty and hesitation in answering. Were the time of the commandment not the present, this condition of the command could not be fulfilled as one of the conditions for the meeting between man and God as formulated by Rosenzweig. It was also noted that the present restful times ensures attainting the bliss in which the acknowledgment that God loves in enveloped. Only one single factor can assist by means of its singular characteristics in opening the mouth of the beloved. This factor is time, which transfers the sinfulness of the past " to current sinfulness, nor as ‘sin' that I committed in the past" (Star 212) By changing one time for a contradictory time the soul sweeps away the shame of the sin and offers himself entirely to love.

             In his discussion of the valid time of the commandment, Rosenzweig relies heavily on the commandment "to love" as being a commandment in time to the extent of seeing time as the essence of the content of the commandment. Rosenzweig sets forth several assumptions: " The commandment knows only the moment…thus the commandment is purely the present...its content tolerates only the form of the commandment, of the immediate presentness…" (Star 209). Rosenzweig thinks that since it is a commandment in the form of the imperative (Gebot),  it is based only on that moment of the pure present. All its content is an utterance that must be in the present, otherwise there would be no distinctive command and the commandment's complexion would change. Its content is time and also its occurrence, for it takes place in the imperative: "love me." " Love me" is the perfect expression,  the pure language of love (Star 209).

             This present, which emerges from each and every moment of man, and at the moment of its emergence it already attains speech, has no intermission for preparation or even though. Its consciousness has already emerged in the hidden secretive irrational, and the idea is already accepted that God loves him. BY means of this secret, the love of God for him is revealed each and every moment. Love in the present, upon its emergence, attains perfection, but the acknowledgement is not yet complete, for the third condition, discussed below, must be fulfilled.

             In "emergence" (Naharayim 209), there is not even an appeal to thought or actual preparation, for the advent and the speech "love me" are one. The momentariness of the present and the speech of command are one unity of the occurring reality which leads to realization of the completion of the concluding part of this commandment. This is the unity of the commandment in the pure language of love: ‘love me' = momentariness emerges. "For in it time is made real entirely. Not in time does the entire occurrence take place, but it, time, itself occurs" (Naharayim 228).

             Time is that which makes distinctive the commandment defined "this is today"; it is the occurrence, "the imperative of the commandment' (Star 209). The love of the lover lives, under the domain of " the great today" (Star 209) – "for you will guard this wole commandment, to that which I command you this day (each and every day), to love the Almighty, your God"; "which I commanded you today to love the Almighty, your God, to walk in his paths and to obey his commandments and laws…" (Deut 19:9).

             All the revelations, Rosenzweig says, are subsumed under "the great today" (Star 209):

             "today on the mountain of the Almighty he will be seen" (Gen. 22:14)

             "today the Almighty appeared to you" (Lev. 4:4)

             "today that which the Almighty said" (Sam A 24:5)

             "this is the day that the Almighty gave" (Judg 4:14)

             "I five to you today" (Deut, 4:8)

             "this is the day God made" (Ps 118:24

             "obey that which I commanded you today" (Exod. 34:11)

 "You shall obey his laws and his commandments which I command you today" (Deut. 4:40)

             The commandment, then, knows "today"—the moment of the pure present in its renewal. i.e. each day appears as new. (Lam. 3:23: "They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.") The commandment is not the form of the declaratory "which has behind it the whole cumbersome rationalization of materiality, and at its purest therefore appears in the past tense" (Star 209). Study of the sources is sufficient to show that the "great today" is the symbol of the commandment. "The great today" is the basis and secret of certainty, the total confidence in the content of the commandment, for it confirms the presence of today standing before me as opposed to the past of yesterday which no longer exists and the futures of tomorrow which cannot be located. Whom will the soul believe if not the "he is" of the form of the utterance of the present, of the now, of the real imperative – "love me" ? (Star 213, 209- 210).

             In what can the soul hope if not the form of the present tense of speech – " I am a sinner'? Rosenzweig thinks that the soul can, after it dares to bring the past to the present, free itself from its restrictions and become ready to feel " that its acknowledgment of the past sin, again is not an admission of sine but that it became past like the sin itself upon which it acknowledged…(rather its knowledge is renewed)… I knew that I am loved" (Star 211-212).

             Thought in t he present says to the soul that the knowledge in the past that it was loved is renewed each and every moment of the present. By force of the momentariness of the present, t he past is cleansed and gains hope in the present and in preparation for the future. This is the generating force, potential power made kinetic, love, facing the future. This is an enormous force, which cleanses the soul of every bit of shame of the past sin and terminates its doubt as to God's answer. Present time grants the soul total certainty in the love of God at the moment it dared to acknowledge, the past behind it, her entreaty prepared.

             In realize the commandment to love, the resent has the power to fill the soul with associations which support and strengthen the soul, the irrational. Only in the present does the soul know that it has no business with " …self-delusion of the beloved soul but that her beloved is a veritable man" (Star 213). It is a sort of rebirth of the soul in the present, a birth of gathering refreshed strength and certainty to realize the reality of the commandment to love. As it is said, "…and make you a new heart and new spirit" ( Ezek. 19:31) and" …and ye shall bring forth the old because of the new" (Lev. 26:10). This is "today" in which the love of the lover lives (Star 209), and each day is "like new that everybody desires it." (Lam. 3:23). Therefore, the verse says "today" "in order that you will not consider it like a command of the king, to which man does not may attention, but like something new that everybody desires it."

             In the commandment to love, present time renews itself each moment as a new and existing moment. It is not constant present which passes once to the past, like the indicative. "The love of the lover is light which burn constantly anew, each moment must become for it the first sight of love" (Star 201). Rosenzweig requires that the commandment not renew itself forever as a dynamic present. It must renew itself each and every moment. It is forever within "today," but all the dead yesterdays and tomorrows will one day be devoured in this victorious "today." "Only this completeness of each moment permits it to grasp the entirety of created life, but thereby it can really do so" (Star 209, 201, 196, 198).

             The entire contact of the commandment to love is utterance of the pure present, distinctively "pure language of love"; otherwise, there would be no distinctive command and the commandment would change complexion. And what factor distinguishes the commandment from other commandments? Rosenzweig explains: "The imperative of the commandment makes no provision for the future; it can only conceive the immediacy of obedience. If it were to think of a future or an ‘Ever' it would be. Not commandment nor order (Gebot), but law (Gesetz)" (Star 209).

             The verse says: " You will obey the commandment and the laws and ordinances which I command you today to do" (Deut 7:11), and not " you will obey the commandments,' for one commandment alone is distinguished from the other commandments, laws and ordinances, and this is the commandment to love. It could never be law, whereas the other could be, and therein lies its distinguishing feature.

             "What is this commandment of all the commandments?" Rosenzweig asks. His answer is "you will love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (Star 210).  That is the distinctiveness of the phase "love me!" (Star 210), which does not think about the future and is thus not law. He explains: "law reckons with times, with a future, with duration. The commandment knows only the moment; it awaits the result in the very instant of its promulgation" (∫Star 209). Law does not direct itself towards something, but speaks objectively in the third person to someone; the commandment is singular in that, grammatically, it is the imperative of the present, it is directed to the you. Law considers that which will follow, with time, with the future, with the impersonal. It worries about changing the condition, about the encounters with time and the possibilities of alienation and infidelity.

             Contrarily, the commandment to love knows only the moment: "the commandment knows only the moment" (Star 209). Rosenzweig maintains that if each commandment, exteriorly and to some degree posteriorly, could also be law, one commandment could not in any way be law, and that is the commandment to love. The commandment is not to be understood as law as one constant and preordained formulation, but as an imperative resulting form the moment of revelation. Revelation is the momentary meeting between man and God, and the commandment receives from this meeting the form of momentariness. The relationship of Rosenzweig to the commandment to love is the imperative relations of command only (Gebot). Its content tolerates only one form of the commandment, of the immediate presentness and unity of consciousness, express and expectation of fulfillment. In this pure, temporary form, Rosenzweig find the commandment to love's supremacy vis-à-vis the other commandments. Thus God's speech begins with " you will love," and everything added to it, potentially becomes also law; however, in potential and actuality there is only one commandment that does not change its essential covering, and that is ‘to love him' "today in which exists the love of the lover ‘which I commanded you today'" (Star 201, 209).

 Summary

 This article begins with a description of the soul of man as the unconscious or the irrational, an element of our being which is records and remembers every moment of every detail of our lives at all points in time. But the irrational (soul) is not to be thought of like computer just saving information, but rather as a dynamic and active force in our life, being active at all times. The soul is the decided part in our understanding of the last part of the Commandment to love.  The second part of this section deals with how the commandment comes to the soul. According to Rosenzweig, when a thought reaches the irrational or the soul, it becomes "reality," for example, when joy reaches the irrational we are indeed feeling joy. Therefore, according to Rosenzweig, you cannot make a conscious intelligence based decision to follow the command ment, it has to be a reflex action taken on by the irrational or the soul. It has to be achieved while at total rest. We cannot force ourselves, through the use of our will, often considered the most powerful force in the world, The more we try to apply our will to following the commandment, the more we will fail. You have to let it come naturally, you cannot attempt to hasten the process, or it will result in ultimate failure.  The next sections centers on the concept of the command ment to love being in the imperative present. One must focus only on the present moment and not the "sin of the past" or the possibility of tomorrow, for the commandment was given in the present tense "today." The present becomes an ever renewing moment, the commandment renewing itself from moment to moment and growing. The last section centers on the subjectivity of the commandment.  The irrational is the subject, the "I", or man kind. The more one tries to bring in external proofs the more one will fail in understanding the commandment to love... When put together, the commandment is a given imperative, given to man in his entirety, his body and his soul, the rational and the irrational, living within his own reality in the present and in this world only not in some other world beyond.

 LIST OF SOURCE MATERIAL ABBREVIATIONS

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper, 1962.

Being

Kreitler, Hans. Deliberations of Cognitive Physicology. Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv U., 1977.

Deliberations

Naharayim

Rosenzweig, Franz. Naharayim [Selected Writings of Franz Rosenzweig]. Trans. Yehoshua Amir. Jerusalem: Bialik Inst., 1977.

Ohr HaShem

Crescas, Chasdai. Ohr HaShem [Light of God]. Ferrara, Italy: n.p., 1956-57.

דף הבית

The Imperative as Expression of Love

            Embedded in the commandment to love is a paradox: " Can one be commanded to love?" Rosenzweig asks this question, trying to understand "the call of the lover ‘love me'…with no preparation… and also with no prior thought" (Star 209). The quintessence of the command is parallel in fact to its true essence—the spontaneous and voluntary nature of the act. And now man is commanded to do it? Is this not astonishing? Can on love "on order"? Certainly, one cannot. " A third party cannot command it and force it…a third party, no; but the One can" (Star  208,209). The commandment to love can come from the mouth of the lover alone. Only the lover can, and has the right, to demand "love me." In the mouth of the lover, this imperative is not foreign , coming from without, but is the voice of love itself: "In his mouth the commandment to love is not a strange commandment; it is none other than the voice of love itself" (Star 209) .

             Moreover, the lover has no means, no other word to express his love, other than the request of this commandment. And only through this love of God for man comes God's commandment to man: "So too the I of the speaker, the root-word of the entire dialogue of revelation, is the seal which , stamped upon each word, makes the individual commandment as a command to love." ( Star 210). This command is the fruit of the moment of love. The lover does not worry about the future. " The imperative of the command has no expectation for the future." (Star 209): "The imperative of the commandment makes no provision for the future…" (Star 209).

             All true love is renewed from moment to moment and grows in the moment. Only the command results in the complete and significant expression of love: "the commandment must renew itself in each and every moment and be the fruit of the instant" (Naharayim  88).

 The Subjective Aspect of the Commandment to Love

            The commandment "you will love " refers to a specific subject: man. "Wherever it is, this is a midpoint and wherever it opens its mouth, there is a beginning" (Star  218). "If I am here, everything is here," in the words of Hillel. The second part of the commandment to love is based on that which man himself sees and experiences. Man listens to what is in his heart through "unity of consciousness". (Star 209), using the yardstick of what is in his heart together with his subjective inclinations.

 For it demands a midpoint in the world for the midpoint, a beginning for the beginning of its own experience…as long as it ( the soul) lingered in the past…it still could harbor doubts…whether it acknowledges its sinfulness as present sinfulness, not as ‘sin committed in the past, it is certain of the answer…it perceives it in its interior. It is not God that need cleanse it of its sin. Rather, it cleanses itself in the presence of his love…It no longer needs this formal absolution…It is freed of its burden at the very moment of daring to assume all of it on its shoulders….no longer (needs) to acknowledge the love-void of the past…rather...I know myself loved…This certainty comes to it, not from God's mouth, but from its own (Star 212, 218).

             Because the soul in its inner self, the irrational, decides in conformity with its subjective inclination to take charge of its fate, to experience all its experiences through its "I," by means of the personal entreaty to the depths of its being, it needs no proofs or testimony external to it: " Only an ‘I,' not a ‘he,' can pronounce the imperative of love…" (Star 210). Rather, it requires "splendorous light," "a vision burst into flame," the subjective inner aspect of the love of God which cleanses itself.

             In the subjective process, feeling has a significant and powerful place. When there is a relationship based on man's self-feeling and his personal, private, entreaty, man does not require an explicit forgiveness from God, for his subjectivity has already said to him that God loves him, which subjectivity is sufficient for it.

             The more one deviates from the borders of its subjectivity and brings external proofs, the more the certainty given by the subjective will be damaged. For there is only one source of realize the commandment, and it is "its mouth" (Star 212). This is the subjective truth, the most basic result of the personal knowledge of man – the entirety of the knowledge, evaluations and conceptions that are personal to man. If he is certain of the verity of his subjectivity, that is the singular truth, there is no other, there cannot be another. Its verity is the superpower of the universe, there is nothing stronger, nor can there be. And just as he is promised that morning will follow night, so, too, is he promised his verification forever and ever, because "Man believes in himself for than 100 men."

             As shown above, man is subject, a fact, which is integral to the existence of the commandment to love. Man, in his subjective individuality, is the basis of Rosenzweig's philosophical method ( Star  218). Rosenzweig speaks of the concept of capability ( Naharayim ∫89-90) alongside the subjective individuality as one body; but the concept of reality ( Naharayim 238) is a synonym for subjectivity in its individuality. It is the relationship of man to himself, the relationship to the possibility of adaptation, for the nature of man is in his ability to be himself, for the complete fulfillment of the commandment to love. We learn this in Heidegger from the concept " Dasein," which means being itself in the knowledge of existence: "being here," and it is made concrete in the concept "projection" ("Geworfenheit"). Man is thrown into his real existence such that he cannot find himself until he is already there. (Being, 42-43). This capability is not a characteristic of a thing, for since he is a man, "capability" and not desire, he can select himself and perceive himself as one of his details. Or on the opposite, losing himself and understanding himself in an errant way as partiality only. As Heidegger defines it, being that is not like its being " ( uneigentliches Dasein") (Being, 84).

            The point of departure of the perception of the existing commandment of Rosenzweig is the point of departure of the critical philosophy of the new time, the word, the subject rooted in the commandment, the "I" in its individuality ( Naharayim 18-37). The subject of the commandment is here similar to the transcendental subject of traditional philosophy, the general consciousness, which contains the a priori forms of cognition which lend objectively to the cognition of the Individual "I," and not the pure consciousness of examining the phenomena by experience. The general consciousness, as individual consciousness detached by the phenomenological reduction from actual man in whom the consciousness resides, is made pure in this sense that there is nothing but the subject of "unity of consciousness" (Star 209).

             According to Rosenzweig, the subject of the commandment "you will love" is man in his complete and concrete reality, in whom there is no separation between the realities of body and soul , and reality is in this world and not beyond it. Therefore, the man who loves as subject understand himself in an original manner, from the aspect of the reality of his "I," and from the aspect of his self in its relationship to the world of things in which he was the midpoint and the beginning.

             To the being of man belongs  a priori understanding of the being of things, and the philosophy must prove this understanding with explicit and methodical expression. The unity of consciousness attributes to object, in its first perceptions, an independent reality, a reality which is part of the independent world to which man belongs. The subject of the consciousness is a real man who belongs in the real world.

             One can relate dynamically to the commandment to love, given as object of the consciousness ( by its being objectively received by the irrational), within the subjective consciousness. What is external to man is the object, which is form and beyond the object with which man is no longer involved. Therefore, the existential understanding of the commandment to love understands man's consciousness as "pure love: in the sense of understanding the relationship to the object of love in its purity. The same original consciousness relates to the object and provides man with the love of God and the world. The love of man is a condition necessary to the entire existential relationship to the world and to God, since it is the condition to the basic fact that he is in the world for himself and therefore "demands a midpoint in the world" (Star 218).

 Summary

 This article begins with a description of the soul of man as the unconscious or the irrational, an element of our being which is records and remembers every moment of every detail of our lives at all points in time. But the irrational (soul) is not to be thought of like computer just saving information, but rather as a dynamic and active force in our life, being active at all times. The soul is the decided part in our understanding of the last part of the Commandment to love.  The second part of this section deals with how the commandment comes to the soul. According to Rosenzweig, when a thought reaches the irrational or the soul, it becomes "reality," for example, when joy reaches the irrational we are indeed feeling joy. Therefore, according to Rosenzweig, you cannot make a conscious intelligence based decision to follow the command ment, it has to be a reflex action taken on by the irrational or the soul. It has to be achieved while at total rest. We cannot force ourselves, through the use of our will, often considered the most powerful force in the world, The more we try to apply our will to following the commandment, the more we will fail. You have to let it come naturally, you cannot attempt to hasten the process, or it will result in ultimate failure.  The next sections centers on the concept of the command ment to love being in the imperative present. One must focus only on the present moment and not the "sin of the past" or the possibility of tomorrow, for the commandment was given in the present tense "today." The present becomes an ever renewing moment, the commandment renewing itself from moment to moment and growing. The last section centers on the subjectivity of the commandment.  The irrational is the subject, the "I", or man kind. The more one tries to bring in external proofs the more one will fail in understanding the commandment to love... When put together, the commandment is a given imperative, given to man in his entirety, his body and his soul, the rational and the irrational, living within his own reality in the present and in this world only not in some other world beyond.

 LIST OF SOURCE MATERIAL ABBREVIATIONS

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper, 1962.

Being

Kreitler, Hans. Deliberations of Cognitive Physicology. Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv U., 1977.

Deliberations

Naharayim

Rosenzweig, Franz. Naharayim [Selected Writings of Franz Rosenzweig]. Trans. Yehoshua Amir. Jerusalem: Bialik Inst., 1977.

Ohr HaShem

Crescas, Chasdai. Ohr HaShem [Light of God]. Ferrara, Italy: n.p., 1956-57.

Star

Rosenzweig, Franz. The Star of Redemption. 2d ed. Trans. William W. Hallo. New York: U of Notre Dame P, 1985.

דף הבית

Interim Summary

                The second condition for the commandment to occur is discussed in two parts:

a.       the first part, God's imperative--"love me," is not yet the acknowledgment of love.

b.      the concluding part, the response of the soul "I sinned," for it could not be that one commanded will remain silent.  It was necessary that the revelation be in utterance, and what cannot be speech need be linked either before or after it.

In the context of this concluding portion, our discussion commenced on the third condition, that of man confessing his sin at its beginning, which brought the soul the bliss of being beloved.  That confession paved the way for the fundamental confession-- "I am a sinner," in which the present tense is used.  Only then were the doubts removed, and the soul is certain of the response it will receive from God (Star 213, 211).

      Also discussed was the self-influence or internal persuasion that God forgive the soul and return its love, the manner of attaining a successful self-persuasion, which begins with acknowledging the past, which was marked by depression, the absence of love and shame for the sin.  The soul then acknowledged the sinfulness in the present, a confession of the love of the soul.  In analyzing the concept of the soul according to Rosenzweig, it was found to be comparable to the irrational, as set forth in his letter to Rudolf Ehrenburg.  This comparison assisted greatly in explaining the idea of love, the content of the command which constitutes the living, existing and real essence in man, located within his consciousness and sometime becoming even its fixed thought.  The explanation was enriched by examples from daily life, examples that emphasized the hidden powers of the soul, i.e. the irrational.

            On the basis of these attributes, the concept of the reality of the acknowledgment of the love of the soul was explained.  The commentaries of the present was found to be involved in singular realization of the concluding part of the commandment to love, and a completion of the confession.  The present time was seen to be the pure act of love as this time proclaims the love as existing and, therefore, only in existing essence can the soul complete its real confession and say, "I know that I am loved (Star 212), in which is embraced the certainty that God loves it.

        The shamed soul confesses "I have sinned" in the first phrase in the past tense, in which the love of God is absent.  The soul completes its confession with the declaration ‘I am a sinner' as an acknowledgment in the present, which becomes, in essence, an acknowledgment of love.  The reciprocal relationship between the soul, the irrational, and the intellect is explained by the change in the soul, in particular the factors which assisted the soul to say courageously what was in its heart and which gave it absolute confidence in the certainty of the love of God.  The circle was closed in man himself, "from its mouth" (Star 212).

Table of Stages of Utterances

        The confession contains two phrases of speech, one following the other.  The following table shows the conditions of revelation of God to man in the framework of all the stages of the phrases of speech.  These stages are the guarantee of the conclusion of the revelation.  "But now he must do so.  For this it is by which revelation first reaches completion" (Star 214).

        These conditions result from the first part of the commandment "love me," and the concluding part presents the response "I have sinned" and "I am a sinner," "for there must be a reply.  Obedience to the commandment cannot lie in muteness.  It, too, must become audible, must become word.  For in the world or revelation, everything becomes word…" (Star 210).

TABLE 2

Acknowledging the Truth or Confessing the Sin

Order of Utterance

Expression

Significance

First

"I have sinned" (Star 211)

Lays foundation for acknowledging love

Second

"I am a sinner" (Star 211)

Acknowledges love

Third

"I am yours" (Star 213)

Acknowledges God

Fourth

"I called you by name, you are mine" (Star 214)

Acknowledges closeness of God

 The First Stage (first utterance)

      In this phase, the soul paves the way to the acknowledgment by saying "I have sinned" or "I was a sinner," each phrase referring to past acts.  The utterance cleanses the past of the weakness of the past, a past of shame and negative aesthetic experience.  The sinner feels abomination for the sin, which, according to Rosenzweig, is the source of disgrace and shame in himself.  Abomination mixes with feelings of shame and reproach.  The shame appears as a frightful monster and causes him, naturally, to be insecure and meek, unable to speak what is in his heart and doubtful of the answer he will receive (Star 211, 212).

      This acknowledgment and the accompanying fear of punishment does not bring him to the second utterance, but brings rather sufferings of feelings of sinfulness and doubt and the absence of certainty and love.  The sinful experience fills him entirely with fear of the response God is likely to give, and the more he takes it to heart, the closer he comes to overcoming it by the power of the presence of the response.

      He begins to mount the ladder of "reality" for the fourth phrase of the acknowledgment of the sin.  However, until his second answer, man is involved only in the demand, "love me" and not with the complete declaration of, "I love you."  This declaration will not come, concludes Rosenzweig, for the sake of love's tie to the moment on which the authenticity of the love of the lover rests.  This authenticity would only be debased by acknowledging it, by continuously declaring it.  It would be debased, debased to its "bases" for the love of the lover is baseless…(Star 193).

The Second Stage (second utterance)

      With the acknowledgment, "I am a sinner," it throws the compulsion of shame far away and gives itself entirely to love.  God created in man a self-defense mechanism which permits him to ignore and not recognize facts and flee from reality.  Undoubtedly, man knew that he sinned and was faithless to his values.  He knows the reason but is unable to speak it openly or to hear it from another.  Anybody who speaks will be stabbed.  At night, alone, his soul cries in secret, but during the day, with others, he is happy and friendly, and in order to cover up the truth alienated within him, he continues to sin, dashing quickly towards the rim of the abyss…

      The acknowledgment requires man to bear the burden of the sin and that which accompanies it and to face it directly while suffering greatly, to recognize the facts as they are, to express clearly the truth as it is.  There is in this a sort of sacrifice, a sort of shattering of will, doubt and hesitation by means of the daring and courage of going against nature while suffering the shame of the past sin.  Rosenzweig summarizes this movement as a result of the sin.  "And teach us, God, to acknowledge before you all our sins" (Neila prayer of Yom Kippur, Siddur 370).  That is, to look at the truth, to look straightforwardly, to break the self-defense mechanism, to destroy the artificial barriers, to tear the mask, to finish via the mouth what began in the heart, each "for the purpose of stopping the deceit of our hands" (Neila prayer of Yom Kippur, Siddur 370).  And then he states "You will accept us with a perfect repentance before you, as if we were fiery offering aromas, for the sake of your word that you uttered" (Neila prayer of Yom Kippur, Siddur 370­).

      Just as the sacrifice is burned on the altar, we burn by means of confession our peacefulness and silence, our introversion, our past life.  Then, and only then, we reach the third response: "before God you will be cleansed" (Lev. 16:30); then, after such a confessional cleansing, we return circularly to God prior to the sin, the father in heaven, who cleanses insofar as we come to be cleansed.

      It is being a past sin, man removes it with his confession; to do that, as shown above, he must overcome his disgrace.  Only now, having shaken off the vulnerability of the past but still acknowledging that he is a sinner, the disgrace is removed.  In daring to make his acknowledgment contemporary, he indicates that he has overcome the shame.  Doubt falls away and he is certain, being confident of God's love, of the answer he will receive.  Hermann Cohen, whose writings Rosenzweig read and studied, writes on the matter of transgression and forgiveness: on this certainty of repentance, the Talmud says superbly: "if you saw a brilliant student commit a transgression at night, don't think ill of him during the day, for perhaps he repented." 1This confidence requires no proofs, for it is the one absolute truth that exits "its mouth" (Star 212).

            The transformation from acknowledging the past sin to the acknowledgment of the certain and absolute love of God is not intellectual.2  Man's intellect was not involved; rather, the incident occurred principally in the domains of feeling, the irrational, the instinctive, faith and the experiential.  Even the soul's knowledge that God loves it, "I know that I am beloved" (Star 212), has its origin in the irrational and not in the intellect.3  Each act acknowledging the sin resulted from the confession of the present sinfulness that removes the negative aesthetic accompanying the sin.

        Therefore, Rosenzweig says that the acknowledgment of the present sinfulness again is not an acknowledgment of the sin-- which became past as the sin itself which was acknowledged, nor is it even an acknowledgment of the love-void of the past; rather "I am a sinner" means that even in this present moment man is as far from God [" I am far from loving" (Star 212)] as God is near to man ["I know that I am beloved" (Star 212)] or, in other words, that the soul's love of God is distant in the same degree that the soul knows it is loved by God.  At this stage, then, the soul has yet to acknowledge God or even God's closeness.  The soul at this point is "far from loving," yet knows well that God loves it.  The soul lacks, at the stage of acknowledging the love, the knowing and feeling, the experiential acknowledgment relating to God's being.  But it's internal knowledge of its relation to God is absolute and certain because it knows that, "I know that I am loved (by God) (though) I am far from loving (God)" (Star 212).

        The statement that "I am loved" is made in place of the utterance, "I am a sinner," which explains why, according to Rosenzweig, the sin was perceived as no longer existing.  "I am a sinner" transfers itself totally to love because only in the response given in the acknowledgment of the love, does man recognize in that degree the kindness of God, revealed to him with enormous force, by means of which he attains devotion.  By sayig. "I have sinned" in the past while suffering the pains of shame, while being uncertain of God's response, and in recognition of the degradation of his shame and the ascendance of God, man observes God's kindnesses in the looking glass of creation (Star 212).

        Because man's soul is raised in the present to this greater love because of the sin, God judges man with great kindness and favor, as if he did not sin at all.  Therefore, we shall call the confession by the special name of the acknowledgment of love, which is on higher level since it brings the individual also to acknowledge god and his closeness to God.  Therefore, "where those who return and repent are standing, totally righteous men do not stand, for only one who repents knows well the mercy of the love of God."4But there are sins which, even after man repented or made the past sin into a current sin, do not merit God's acceptance.  For example, the transgression of desecrating God's name which causes others to sin5, whose punishment, repentance and the day of Yom Kippur, itself, do not have the power to suspend.  And sufferings do not cleanse; only death cleanses.  Only by "abolishing" the evil is the desecration of God removed.  For if there remains in the world even a recollection of sin by the existence of blasphemy, the blasphemy continues to be present; therefore, God does not accept the repentance, and only by death is the desecration corrected.  Death is part of the correction.  Following repentance and Yom Kippur and sufferings, and only after these, does God totally complete the adjustment and permit man to be joined again with God.  Rosenzweig writes: "Man dies his way into the over and is resurrected in him" (Star 197).

The Third Stage (third utterance)

                Only when the soul confesses directly to God, "I am yours" (Star 213), does it admit and testify to the existence of God, and God the revealed acquires being.  "If you are my witness, I am God" (Star 213).  This is the apex of the acknowledgment of the soul itself to God.  This acknowledgment exceeds previous acknowledgments; by acknowledging God, that which is missing in man is made whole.  God's love of the soul is not distant.  The soul proclaims, "I am yours," I am close to loving God.  This statement can be groundlessly: "the soul speaks it purely out of the living overflow of its blissful moment" (Star 214); any explanation will only damage the enormous and powerful force of the internal, pure faith experience that "my beloved, God, is truly God" (Star 213).

                 This stage is carved from the element of faith internal to man.  This religious belief says that in spite of man being soiled and spoiled by the sin of the past, and that despite the lack of confidence and the doubt which gnaws away at the good that remains, he can, via powers within him alone, rise and exit the hopeless state he is in.

                 With the power of the present and the acknowledgment of the internal, experiential faith in him, man feels and knows that although all the doors are closed before him, there exists somewhere a narrow and secret path which winds and turns and twists between the mountains, one which goes up and down backwards and forewords.  If he walks along this path, he will arrive at total devotion, having the certainty that nobody can stop him.  If he wants to walk along public ways, "in the community of the praying,"6] on his way to confession and not "in the community of single persons," he will immediately be blocked -- who are you and what do you want here?

                        The high- road is closed before the man who sins.  The angels of mercy do not let him pass, for no one can come to the gate of the King dressed in a sackcloth of sins and transgressions.  But if the high-road is closed, he can pass along the hidden paths of the jungle.  The road whereby he reaches the goal is not a public way, but the singular road of "the community of single persons," with each man and his path: "And God lifts up his countenance to this united and lonely pleading of men in their shrouds, men beyond the grave, of a community of souls…And the individual upon whom God shines his countenance rejoices and proclaims seven times: ‘God is the Almighty'!" (Star 349).

                "I know that I am loved" is completed by the acknowledgment of the soul "I am yours" I am close to love.  Thus, the soul admits that its being is in love and that it gives trustworthy testimony that God exists.  Just as man feels and knows that another path remains available for him, so, too, must he believe that in the depths of his heart, there yet remains among the pile of cinders one burning ember, one spark, and from this single spark it is possible to start a fire anew.

                Herein lies the dialectic of the response's process.  The acknowledgment of love has only one content--faith.  The response in the present says that the forces in man permit him to vault from the feeling of sin which lowers him unrelentingly into another feeling, that of "I am yours" (Star 213).  "Yesterday I was without love in shame and doubt… and today I am loved and certain"; between yesterday and today there is one moment, one jump.  This jump is at the foundation of the sacrifice, which is the central part of the Yom Kippur service.  "When a Jew brings the sacrifice, in what is he atoned?  Can it be the two shekels of the lamb or ox?  Of course not!  The atonement comes to him in the confession of identifying his sin with the sacrifice.  This confession is self-nullification and self-destruction, total submission, self-sacrifice of  his entire being and of that which he possesses… as of he were sacrificed on the altar."  Rosenzweig writes: "The pre-esthetic Whole must sacrifice itself for the sake of esthetic inspiritedness….when that human wholeness foregoes itself in favor of a something which it itself does not consider to have proceeded from within it…" (Star 222, 223).  "But as artist it must sacrifice itself to them…" (Star 224).  As a sacrifice on the altar, man sacrifices himself and when the sacrifice rises in fire, another man arises--the soul born in the arms of the beloved.

                The polarity of the soul of man is now disclosed. The faith, in its experiential content, proclaims "him whom I have recognized as the lover in experiencing my being loved ("I know that I am loved") - ‘he is'."  Now I am close to loving him because he, at his time is real --"he is" (Star 212, 213).  And only with this certainty does the faith based on the experience find its rest.

                The beloved soul knows God loves it, that he is truly God, and that he is the God of truth just as the beloved knows to believe that its beloved is not only the man who loved it but also he really and truly exists.  This faith of the beloved is what makes him "properly man."  The faith that "I know I am loved" and the faith in the love of God arouses the soul to speak.  The first faith establishes the real, concrete being of all the senses.  Only with this faith, this confession before God, can the soul testify to the being of God by that which he possesses: revealed divinity (Star 213, 212).

The Fourth Stage (the fourth utterance)

                Now that God has acquired the being of God, revealed without dependence on a hidden being, He, too, can confess without endangering the pure presence of the experience.  The entire experience of speech at this stage is in the open.

                However, God cannot confess until He is revealed.  When the soul acknowledges "I am yours," God can then acknowledge it.  "Return to me and I shall return to you, said God."  This verse from Malachi 3:7 reinforces Rosenzweig's statement: "he (God) must be acknowledged" (Star 213, 214).  Thus, even after man's response--and though God indicated that was, indeed, "to me"--it remains necessary that He "return to you," that God complete his answer.

                Had there not been a rapprochement on God's part, man would still have been far from devotion to God, and the answer would have remained incomplete.  Rosenzweig explains that only with the answer of God did the revelation occur.  For the revelation, existing in the present to the One, is a vision of the creation of the past.  If God's answer had not taken place, the One could not see the creation of the past in the looking-glass of revelation in the present.  "The creation that becomes visible in revelation is creation of the revelation."  The idea that the meeting is a demonstration of creation, that the creation is seen through the power of the meeting, was already emphasized by Rabbi Yehuda Halevi in the Kuzari (1:13).  The difference is in the manner of explaining the demonstration.  According to Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, it is public, whereas Rosenzweig views it as individualistic.

                Were it not for the fourth utterance, the soul would have remained in a situation whereby there was only a one-sided acknowledgment of the divinity and not the ensuing acknowledgment of the closeness of a sensed, revealed God.  Therefore, with the confession of the soul that "I am yours," God answers only by "I called you by name, you are mine."  God does not answer with the similar, simple formulation of "You are mine"; he first raises the past (the creation of the past) and sets himself "[the existing revelation" (Star 214)] as the founder and initiator of the dialogue in the form of the imperative "I and You."  Only in the imperative can God be revealed to man.

                Therefore, in paralleling the past and the present, Rosenzweig maintains that in God's response there is more than simple dialogue, but that the dialogue stands in relationship to the  creation in the past, it "posits a relationship into the world of things" (Star 215).  He grounds his present in the past but does not explain thereby the past.  He simply sees the past in the light of the present, and requests for himself the status of the present in the world and not just within himself.

                "You are mine" means that the lover is aware of having begotten the beloved in his love and given birth to her in travail.  That is, from ‘distant I am from loving' was born a new love, the love of the soul by God.  This love was born on the basis of the knowledge or the faith that the soul knows that God loves it.  Now he knows himself as the creator of the love, of the soul's love that was missing in the second utterance.

                With the consciousness that "I am close to loving" (Star 214), he enfolds her and envelops her with his love in the world -- "you are mine."  "Now the soul is closer to loving, since it is close to God, which is the essence of the acknowledgment of the nearness of God.  The "you are mine" that is spoken to it draws a protective circle about its steps" (Star 215).

                God completes his answer and cleanses the heart of man totally from any doubt: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you" (Ezek.  36:26).  Thus, the soul becomes a part of the world, an integral part of the creation as looking-glass of revelation.  And only from this looking-glass to its presence is there real status in the world.  For that which is grounded in the past is, in its presentness too, a visible reality, and not merely internal.  Therefore, the soul "can roam the world with eyes open and without dreaming.  Now and forever more it will remain in God's proximity" (Star 215).

"Now it knows: it need but stretch out its right hand in order to feel God's right hand coming to meet it."  God gave the power of this absolute certainty in His utterance grounded in the past "you are mine," and its faith came to rest (Star 215).

                The first element, then, in repentance ("I have sinned") is the courage to acknowledge the sin of the past, even though such an acknowledgment is insufficient.  In order to attain complete repentance, one must accept the sin as a present transgression ["I am a sinner" (Star 211)], thereby overcoming the shame of the sin by admitting that one remains a sinner, but at the same time removing the shame.

                The role of present sin in repentance is, on the one hand, a declaration that the current sinfulness is not again acknowledgment of the sin that became past like the sin itself on which it confessed.  The present sinfulness is not an acknowledgment of the absence of love in the past but, the soul proclaims, even at this moment God's love of the soul is distant in the same degree that the soul knows that God loves it.  God judges man according to the moment, as with Ishmael: when Hager cast him under one of the bushes, it is written "for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is."  Rashi comments: "according to deeds the he does now he will be judged, and not according to what he will do in the future.  As if the angels, prosecuting, state: Almighty, he whose descendants will kill your sons, like for one who is thirsty, you raise him a well?  And he responds: Now what is he--righteous or evil?  They said to him: Righteous.  He said to them: According to his current deeds I judge him, and that is ‘where he is'.  (Gen.  21:17) Rosenzweig states: "It is certain of God's love in the very moment that shame withdraws from it and it surrenders itself in free, present admission - as certain as if God…" (Star 212).

                The repentance of the soul is nourished by the acknowledgment of love, but acknowledgment of God is missing.  The acknowledgment of love is the foundation of the experiential belief of the certainty of the knowledge that it is loved.  The answer of the soul "I am yours," fills the space created in the relationship to God.  "I am yours" suggests that not only does the soul know that God loves it, but that it is close to loving Him.  The soul now knows God as a lover--"He is" revealed, for "God, my beloved is truly God."

                However, the response is not completed without acknowledgment of the closeness of the sensed, revealed God.  Following the soul's confession to the revealed God, God can respond, "I called you by name, you are mine."  This response testifies to a double relationship.  I called you by name within the past creation; "you are mine" is revealed in the present.  Thus, God wants to position man in the world and not only within himself; God has begotten the beloved in His love.  The beloved who was distant is born not only in the consciousness of man but in His real perception.  Thus, the soul knows that henceforth it need but stretch out its right hand in order to feel God's right hand coming to meet it.  With this utter certainty, its faith came to rest.7

LIST OF SOURCE MATERIAL ABBREVIATIONS

Yehuda ben Shmuel HaLevi. Sefer HaKuzari [The Book of the Kuzari]. Jerusalem: Zifroni P, 1961.

Kuzari

Siddur Imrei Ephraim [Prayer Book Imrei Ephraim]. New York: Mesorah Publication, 1985.

Siddur

Rosenzweig, Franz. The Star of Redemption. 2d ed. Trans. William W. Hallo. New York: U of Notre Dame P, 1985.

Star

1 Talmud, Tractate Berachot 19.  Cohen, Dat H'Tvuna M'Mkorot H'Yehadot. [Religion of Understanding from the Sources of Judaism], 259.

2 See below Chapter Three:  The History of the Orientation, and "The Power of the Orientation".

3 See below Chapter Three:  The History of the Orientation, and "The Power of the Orientation".

4 Talmud, Tractate Berachot,34B

5 See Rashi, Talmud, Tractate Yoma, 89A

6 See Cohen, Hermann, "Transgression and Forgiveness"  Religion of Understanding from the Sources of Judaism, 253-254; "… it was decided that the confession would be spoken, in the company of those praying."

7  Compare Cohen, Religion of Understanding, 259.  See also, the Talmud, Tractate Berachot, 19A, on the matter of complete certainty.

דף הבית

Abstract

The article will discuss the aspects of the dialogue meeting. Rozenzweig changes the historical meeting (revelation at Mt. Sinai) to a personal one. The meeting is real, factual, not figurative, and does not depend on what happened before. It is a sudden event, an axis between the past creation and the future redemption. The present time makes the reality of the meeting firm. The meeting takes man from the pole of pessimism to that of optimism. The dialogue gives man purpose. Love arises out of the dialogue between man and God. Understand this view of love explains the inner certainty of faith that a man experiences and the reality of such dialogue for the man.

 The encounter does not only occur in time, but time itself occurs: For time is made in it entirely real.  Not in time occurs everything which takes place, but it, time itself occurs."

-          Franz Rosenzweig. The New Thinking 228

            As noted previously, the meeting focuses on the experiential, personal and real.  The source of the meeting is in historic knowledge, and its manifestation, a posteriori, is in the soul of man, through his most private experiences.  In this chapter, the meeting is depicted according to several characteristics.

THE FACTUAL CHARACTERISTIC

                The biblical factuality

            The God acknowledges himself to man.  In theological terms, this fact is called "revelation" and in Rosenzweig's language "meeting."  It is "the Divine Presence revealed"-- the appearance of God to man, and His being.  The meeting occurs in nature or in man who finds its manifestation in the historic, traditional Jewish thinking.  God revealed himself to Job from the storm:  "Then answered the Lord into Job out of the whirlwind…" (Job, 40:6) and some persons gain the "revelation of God" or even the "revelation of the Divine Presence": Revelation of God to Abraham in a vision (Gen. 15:6).  The prophet demanded from the Children of Israel to recognize their God as the ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib (Isa. 1:3).  "But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul" (Deut. 4:29).  "The Lord is nigh unto all of them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth" (Ps. 145:18).  Judaism teaches that all the knowledge of the will of God results initially from a number of meetings.  This is the manner of factual revelation explicit in the Torah which is depicted as revelation of the semblance of God.  Man is seen as the handiwork of God, close to God, and God reveals himself.  Genesis shows that God walked with man (Gen. 3:3) and God spoke to him (Gen. 3:9).  Noah was commanded by God's voice to do several commandments, which were accepted as the basis of religious and societal life for all persons and peoples (Gen.  10:3-7).  Abraham merited several personal contacts, from which he came to know his master as Lord of all the earth and his way of doing justice and righteousness.  God appears to him when he is about to reveal to him what he will do in the future vis-à-vis the earth (Gen.  18:33).  What distinguished the meeting between Abraham and God was that which is written:  "But Abraham stood yet before the Lord" (Gen.  18:22).  Or what according to the Mesora was written:  "And God continues to stand before Abraham." 1 The Torah itself, which was to become the supreme guide in the life of the individual and people as nation, was given to Israel through the agency of Moses, "whom the Lord knew face to face" (Deut.  34:10).  Moses hears the voice of God speak to him (Exod. 3:11, 14), and when Moses came to the tent of meeting, the Torah states that "the similitude of the Lord shall he behold" (Num. 12:8).  Moses is not present, but he sees perfectly, neither by enigma nor parable.

            The biblical meeting bears with it factual knowledge directly from God, resulting from the personal experience in which God is revealed to the soul of man.  The elements of Judaism are based on the fact that religion is revealed and this is its validity.  Rosenzweig altered revelation, changing it from a singular event to a meeting renewing itself every moment in the soul of man.

The elemental factuality

            Rosenzweig divides fact into two spheres, one elemental, or pure factuality, and the second, experiential factuality:  That revelation exists in the present (experiential factuality ) is a demonstration of the creation of the past ("elemental factuality").  The elemental factuality is the objective factuality of the actions and events of creation and transmitted, actual history.  It is the "first revelation," or the first meeting between God and that which surrounds God and His creations.  The elemental factuality lacks time and place in relation to the other factual elements, man and world, because although the "first revelation" was fixed in space and time, in reference to man in the present, God still doesn't meet man in specific place or in specific time.  The meeting will be in the future in specific time and place, according to Franz Rosenzweig.  Therefore, without communication between them in respect of time and place, there is not yet orientation, nor can there be certainty in the soul of man.  Thus, the world is neither dream nor drawing, but rather its being is existence, real existence in creation and past history.  They express primary testimony, unimpeachable, they  neither  grow nor increase, but rather they are made and determined once and forever more.  The facts, imposed on the concealed God, created the first meeting, silent but potential.  They are facts known on the basis of the increase of objective standing alone and silent in the absence of communication between them.  To man, the world seems varied, though not in its infinite hues, but in the completeness of the realities: man, world, God.  Thus, there is no mere increase, but it is arranged nicely, the multiples of the triangle. (See chapter one.)  This is what Rosenzweig calls "darkness" (Star 211), the background of the experiential meeting fact; in this "darkness" in the light of revelation has yet to rise from its seclusion.

The experiential factuality

            This factuality is, in fact, the conclusion of the concealment in favor of revelation.  The elemental, fixed, objective and absolute element is now opened, and is revealed experientially in respect of, and bridging to, another element, which, in this event, is God with man or man with God.  This is certain fact since it occurs in the open; the entire essence of the meeting is that it is disclosed, the object is revealed from within the subjective channel of the soul of man: Thus, "individually experienced belief… also finds the highest certainty possible for it…" (Star 215).  Ahead of us are actual and revealed objects, and they are rightly more certain.  Man knows real God without considering philosophy which denounces knowledge which is beyond possible experience, and knows nothing of anything not learned by experience.  Looking at the creator through this philosophic looking-glass, the intellect will appear to us as a supplier of information indirectly resulting from God, the source of which is in the study and research of our physical surroundings, a revelation in nature, as if the revelation of the meeting bears with it the direct knowledge of God, which results from personal experience, in which God is revealed to the soul of man.  We see, then, in order to acquire the divine concept from the religious aspect, the intellect must be assisted by Rosenzweig's concept of revelation; if so, can we not do away with the intellect?  Rosenzweig responds that "understanding is the basis of existence, but there is also existence in understanding itself" (Naharayim 240). 

            This experiential fact is, in fact, a continuation of the sense revelation of the revelatory occurrence to the eye and sounds to the ear at Mr. Sinai and the revelation to personages, etc., with one small distinction.  Religious man today experiences the same sense experiences via the channel of his soul, but this does not change at all the essence of the real, sense revelations of "fire and speech" which occurred in the past in the factual experiencing of the present; these are the same real revelations that were revealed long ago.  The experiential fact, and in our case the meeting, is a meeting with life and as such the human in every man is a vital and active being.  This, ultimately, is the pure fact, that man hears a voice and does not think it is a worthless dream or illusion, but rather is certain that it is the voice of God calling to him: "…as if God had spoken into its ear that ‘I forgive'…" (Star 212),"… that he whom the soul experiences in its love really lives, that he is not merely illusion and self-delusion of the beloved soul… therewith God too, the manifest God, first attains being…" (Star 235).  Rosenzweig's concept of this is similar to that of Rabbi A. Kook: "… in the depths of the human soul, the voice of God calls unceasingly.  The confusion of life can only confound the soul to the point of not hearing… the call of the caller, but certainly it cannot uproot the basis!  The origin and the foundation of this voice, which is truly the entire essence of human life…" (Ikvei HaTson 130).  In the center of this sphere rests the vital moment- the conversation:  "For in the world of revelation everything becomes word…"  Rosenzweig momentizes the word or conversation very much; in the field of education he wanted to impart knowledge by dynamic language and not via the "dead letter" (see Simon 9-41).  For example, the experiential fact raises God's love for man from the potential to the kinetic.  As potential, love was mercy created standing objectively.  In action, this mercy is revealed in the form of love flooding the soul and giving it the eagerly awaited bliss.

            Thus, the same dynamic language that was present as  elementary factuality in creation is revealed as experiential factuality, the pure factuality being maintained.2   In the elemental sphere God speaks to himself whereas experience there is a partner to that speech.  The "I" is the same "I" in experience.  Thus, Rosenzweig states that "what man hears in his heart as his own human speech (in experience) is the very word which comes out of God's mouth (in creation)" (Star 185). In creation, it was the God concealed from the soul of man, and in the meeting, the same God eagerly awaited by the soul is revealed.  The next question that must be considered, and which shall be discussed forthwith , is- does God reveal his essence in the fact of the experience?

The two sides of a coin

            Rosenzweig, in stating that God reveals himself in an experiential fact, does not mean that we come to know the divine fact as Himself.  The essence of the experiential fact is in removing the concealed God, the distant God, and making him a proximate God.  Were we standing in the elemental factuality, God would have remained hidden: "…whereas within revelation he at once becomes manifest…" (Star 192).

            The meeting is not to be seen as an answer to the ontological questions such as those referring to reality, the essence and manifestation of God.  The concept of divinity, when one seeks to attain the meeting, is not a metaphysical concept nor does it aspire to see anything at all.  One  cannot expect the meeting or "revelation of God" to supply answers in respect of the questions of the quantity of suffering, fear of death; rather, it will provide man the courage to adjust the fear of death and suffering, which he is able to do, and even to vanquish it with certainty by means of the force of love - life - as Rosenzweig holds:  "This love is the eternal victory over death" (Star 198).  The pagan perception chose plainly, in competing with the "concealed God," to remove it beyond the link with the world and life and placed it as a god alone, silent and secluded, but this God feels and knows the world (including men), and this is Rosenzweig's addition to Kauffman's fundamental conception of paganism (Toldot HaEmunah).   Rosenzweig wanted to nullify this approach by building a bridge to the world and man, by creating an opening to bring God close to the world and man: "… in reality … bridges are built on him… God veils himself, when we try to grasp him; man, our self, withdraws, and the world becomes a visible enigma.  God, man, and the world reveal themselves only in their relation to one another, that is, in creation, revelation and redemption…" (Naharayim  198).  If, in the first stratum, the internal transition was emphasized, within God himself, the transition from the concealed God to the nearby God in the experiential fact, we must accentuate the bond between the nearby God and man.  Indeed, there is in this no internal division within the divinity in the above factual strata.  And from two aspects we can deny this contention of division:

(a)    Distant God in the first sphere is none other than the nearby God in the second stratum.  The one who disappeared in the first stratum, is revealed in the second; the creator in the first is the redeemer in the experiential factuality (Star 214).  The experiential factuality does not draw after it a determination of a new divine essence for "silence is praise unto thee, O God" (Ps.  65:2).  The experiential factuality is the other aspect of God, God in faith, relating to and joining with man.  The experiential factuality does not define the divine essence but its relationship to man (Naharayim 230).  This relationship bridges between God and man.  The elemental fact is the beginning of the true meeting in which is fixed the relationship between God and man.  In other words, in the first stratum, "the beginning" remains hidden and distant, and it is not made experiential factuality (Star 149).

(b)   Though the experiential factuality is the other aspect of God, it does not bring us closer at all to knowing the disappeared essence of God.  In this factuality, we can know the reality of God in his relationship to man, but we are incapable of knowing his essence:  "God revels himself when we try to grasp him; man, our self, withdraws, and the world becomes a visible enigma.  God, man, and the world reveal themselves only in their relations to one another; that is, in creation, revelation, and redemption"  (Naharayim 230).  What is God… what was before creation, these are what are beyond all thought.  Rabbi Kook also expresses the Rosenzweig concept: "When the Torah speaks of ‘God,' it does not intend his essence, for he is beyond all reality.  We do not speak of the creator of the world but of our relationship to the creator, of the significance to us of the fact that there is a creator of the world.  This is relatively subjective knowledge.  It was Kant who proved that there is no cognition in and of itself.  I am unable to speak of a specific fact as it truly is; I can only speak of it as I see it, and it may be that another person will see it differently.  If one boasts of speaking of the thing itself, as it is, he is mistaken.  "The truth is, we always knew, and we did not need Kant to disclose to us, that all human cognition is relatively subjective" (Kook, Ikvei HaTson 130), and, "not to Kant, but rather to Sinai and Jerusalem, to Abraham, David, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai… the wiser and more excellent the better… it already lies in our treasury in a form more perfect, more open and, most importantly, more divine" (Igrot H'Raia 1:47-48).  Rosenzweig also states: "Now it (individually experienced belief) also finds the highest certainty possible for it, but only in this its historicity, its ‘positivity'" (Star 215).  The conceptual proof perception does not apply to the nearby God in the stratum of the experiential and disclosed fact.  One can relate to the nearby God with faith and not as conceptual knowledge, "but when he is totally distant… we are able to obtain the… proof" (Sechzig Hymnen 189).  For only the religious, faith relationship does what philosophy cannot do.  It tells us of an eternal being, with whom man can attain the most personal contact and find his supreme satisfaction.  Rosenzweig calls this act "absolute empiricism."  The concept of God is a manifestation of the relationship revealed in the experiential fact, the meeting.  In the experience of the instinct for life, man arrives at experiential self-identity.  The experiential fact is not suffered, but is rejected.  The relationship seeks to renew the given in the elemental factuality, in conformity with the ideal which is clarified during its fulfillment.  Divinity itself, then, is revealed in the instinct for life peculiar to man when he strives toward his goal unhindered by any obstacle or failure.  From the point of view of this relationship, the elemental fact and the experiential fact are two sides of the same coin.

             Rosenzweig presents a philosophical defense of the claim that there is no internal division in the divinity from the two aspects referred to above.  He also attempts to offer the religious Jew not only with a consistent and concrete way of life leading to the certainty in the life of his faith but also solutions, relying on the power of belief, to overcome his loneliness, suffering and existential fear.  Rosenzweig, an eminent philosophical pioneer, opposed the modern existentialists who toiled prodigiously to respond clearly to the question of the loneliness of the Jewish man of faith.3   Rosenzweig thus contributed substantially to reinforcing the steadfast and eternal faith of the Jew in his God and to permeating Jewish life with the harmony of love and security.

             However, there were many who disagreed with the absolute certainty that Rosenzweig emanated in his struggle with the questions about existence.  For example, Rabbi J.  B.  Soloveichik notes in his book, Ish HaEmunah (Man of Faith), the difficulty of the perception of the first side of the coin - the transcendental (hidden) God.  The Rabbi's criticism is modest.  The concealed stratum in Judaism, according to Rabbi Soloveichik, is the typical expression of the spiritual struggle of the believing, practicing Jew.  The man of faith must vanquish the contrasts and inconsistencies resulting from the contradictory life of the religious versus the secular environment.  Rabbi Soloveichik's modesty is indeed ample.  He admits that one should not expect a solution to the problems he raises.  "Since the problem is not solvable" (Soloveichik 12), he finds it sufficient to formulate logical questions "which do not even have an answer" (Soloveichik 12).  Everyone knows that eternal problems find no objective solution in the answers of mortal man, who is no more than substance with an end; and a substance which ceases cannot perceive the eternal, for it is only a small part of eternity.  But Rosenzweig is nevertheless able to deliberate on the formulation, by means of which the philosopher and the man of faith attempt to solve the existential problems of man.  Rosenzweig seeks his solutions in the domain of subjective solutions of belief, in the soul of man, since the problem raised by the philosopher is also subjective.

             Rabbit Soloveichik's philosophic discussion on this loneliness of the man of faith (Soloveichik 10) suspended in space without a solution would astonish Rosenzweig.  According to Rosenzweig, the loneliness of the believer lies in the first sphere (the hidden God), it is only a phase and not final.  Therefore, loneliness is not vulnerable to an annoying question for which there is no answer, as Soloveichik maintains.  Rosenzweig asserts that the hidden God is revealed in His relationship to man as a revealed God, like man speaking to man, so much so that it may be proven (Sechzig Hymnen 189).  Man can now "roam the world with eyes open and without dreaming.  Now and forevermore it (man's soul) will remain in God's proximity" (Star 215).  "God's voice fills the innermost soul… (man leaves his loneliness behind) certain of its (the soul's) worldly reality in belief and lives this times in the ‘eyes of everything that lives'" (Star 216).

 The fact of the meeting – semblance or reality

            According to the structure of Star of Redemption, one may argue that the meeting with God is a fact probable by itself which requires no proof, and in Rosenzweig's basic conception is understood by itself.  And the experience pursuant to which we know the reality of God lies only in the meeting of man with God - in the revelation of the meeting, in which man's entire belief is rooted.  The meeting is an experiential fact which is unimpeachable.  It not only accepts contents in their factuality, such as the law of cause and effect, but accepts also specific realities as unchallengeable realities.  There exists a direct link between experiential factuality and adherence to realities, and to one reality.  The realities are three - God, man, world - each of which stands, independently, alongside the other two.  Therefore, each concept of experience is "relationship into the world of things", that is, Rosenzweig is speaking of "the status of something real in the world" (Star 215).

             The experiential fact makes God present in the intimate four paces of man in a most vital matter.  This is disclosed and factual reality: "… she [the soul] must believe that her beloved is veritable man; she cannot be satisfied that it simply is the one who love her" (Star 213).  It wants to show God as a side of the realty which impels man to use his self- consciousness to transcend his traits which he shares with other animals and be a lofty and exalted creature.  As such, man attains the knowledge of God in his contact and meeting with him, precisely by means of his experiential consciousness, when that consciousness is already developed to the degree that it will recognize the divinity in its experience: "… him whom I have recognized as the lover in experiencing my being loved - he ‘is'" (Star 213).  The pure factuality unravels for man the reality in the looking-glass of his personality, which comprises the desire of his soul, and from that attainment hopes for redemption of the soul and its improvement or for perfection of the soul.  The blaze if his consciousness seizes then that which is intended to produce from him the best that is within him.  This is the elemental factual event in the experiential revelation which does not remove man from the borders of nature but rather enables him to see nature from the aspect of the elevation of man to that of exalted creature.  We do not need to say what God is in and of Himself.  The action of the experiential fact tells what God is at this moment: "… the momentary love of the lover" (Star 203).  That is, in what case is God in the dynamic meeting?  No mute and longing essences are acting here, real actions are occurring--the real activity of vital man and the real activity of the living God.  Each goal if the experiential activity is only to explain the conscious and experiential data in order to reveal in them the seeds of faith relationship: "Experienced belief only comes to rest in this certainty of having been long ago summoned, by name, to belief" (Star 215).  The experiential fact applies only to the actions of God and man, actions of communication.  With every undertone we use to speak about experiential fact, we speak of the functional task of each one of the elements (God, man) in the experience of one vis-à-vis the other.  The meeting reality is focused only in this functional system.  On the basis of this relationship, Rosenzweig transcribes its relationship to the historic past of the personal revelations at Mt. Sinai, etc. and transfers them to the meeting in the present, a process called reproduction (see Dreikurs 68), by means of which we can see, hear, or sense things not only at the time they are sensed by the eye, ear or skin, but also a long time after the above-mentioned biological process has ceased.  It can also pass via conscious influence from generation to generation through the power of tradition.  Thus, Rosenzweig is understood when he says: "We know precisely what each one…  God, man, the world, individually, is" (Naharayim 224-225.)4 Possibly Rosenzweig learned from his medical and psychological studies that one can return in his imagination to the vision of home or the image that he once saw, even by strong confirmation of another person of an entire people, or can hear the tune he heard once as well as if another repeats it, without the house or the image being before him or the tune being played in his ear.  In these instances the brain's memory mechanism is activated to return the earlier phenomenon; we see visions and hear voices when awake or in dreams without doubting for a moment the reality of these visions.  The essence of the experiential fact is to serve as an orientation factor in the reality which is still far beyond, and to bring it before us in the present.  Man believes in his heart that he truly hears and sees sounds and visions.  Only then does the elemental fact receive actual validity. 

             What emerges from the above is that the purpose of the experiential fact is to summarize all the phenomena that we encounter in the external world in space and time, which are summarized in the meeting, as a result of the processes which occur in our world from within our soul, in our consciousness or below the portal of our consciousness.  The brain is only an implement, a mechanism, like the eye, ear and other sense implements, intended to arouse the psychic mechanism, the soul, to believe in the existence of the fact which appear in exterior space, in space outside the body of man, in the elements of God and the world.  In respect to the believer, what is believed is the existing experiential factuality.  Only because the experiential fact was covered once by the elemental fact can we believe it: "Now it also finds the highest certainty possible for it, but only in this its historicity, its "positivity'" (Star 215).  Even persons that one considers deranged and who tell stories of things which do not and never did exist believe in the reality of elemental things as a fact of the past upon which they speak in the present.  Indeed, the things exist in the past to them - occurring reality - and to them we, and not they, are the unusual persons.

             Rosenzweig wants to teach us that the goal of experiential factuality is to fix criteria of reality, phenomena in the world whose source is in the soul of man:5 the soul of man, by the mechanism of intellect, creates phenomena of the objective events in the past and, with the power of the purpose of experience and the power of belief, accepts them as existing facts.

             The entire experiential philosophy is built on the cornerstone--belief: "Individually experienced belief…" (Star 215).  Rosenzweig continues on this belief course even beyond the present and into the future, where there are persons whose purpose of being is to influence others with the power of their belief.  Their love emanates from their power of belief on others, as Moses delegated his prophecy to Joshua or Elijah the Prophet to Elisha.  From the strength of this influence, the mechanism of the brain and soul is activated also in the other person, and he hears and sees, and feels that which was instilled in him.[vi]  Factually, then, there is no distinction if ether waves or light waves activate the retina of the eye and the nerves transmit the sensation to the brain and the brain to the soul and then we see the house outside; or a man, with the power of the experiential fact of the strength belief influences this mechanism and activates it, and we see things that we do not ordinarily see in our daily lives.  Everything is accomplished within the soul and not from without; by means of the power of religious, believing, experiential factuality we grasp the occurrences or the things as if they are external.  If there is, then, some special person who can activate the mechanism, of our soul in conformity to his belief and will, and we see or hear unusual things, they are no less real than the things we grasp daily in normal circumstances.  In daily life we grasp the tables as standing on the ground.  The man of belief can cause the table to rise in the air without toughing it.  How is that?  In this is explained the entire intention of Rosenzweig vis-à-vis the concept of the reality of the experiential fact.  This fact is activated by the strength of the energy of belief.

 Belief as power constructing the fact

                The power of belief, with its particular talent as genius chosen by God, activates the mechanism of our soul so that we will believe also that the chair rose in the example given, above.  When the experiential fact encounters God, that is, the power of belief acts on the soul of man and changes him to substantial real vision, and real God speaks.  "What man hears in his heart as his own human speech is the very word which comes out of God's mouth" (Star 185).  And in the moment that we believe in this, it is veritable and real.  Rosenzweig states that everything occurs within the soul:  For "he cannot make himself known to the soul before the soul has acknowledged him" (Star 214).  We only imagine that something occurred externally, and at the moment that we believe in this, it is a vital, real fact and not "illusion" (Star 213).  Consequently, the table can dance or move from one place to another and one can create semblances, faces, hands, and feet, and tell of things that occurred or are occurring a distance away or of forgotten things, for the power which activates the experiential fact, belief, creates an actual reality, and within this reality exists also the belief of other believers.  And one can feel the reality of the meeting in the present and the purpose in the future, since the power of the factuality is the experience of the reality, and this is its purpose.  The above explanation one can understand from Rosenzweig: "We know the most precise way, we know by intuition of the experience, what God himself is…" (Naharayim 224-225).

             The existence of the experiential fact is in the power of belief, and if another believing Jew describes the occurrences in another manner, in respect of him and those who believe like him, it occurred veritably.  The events occur within the soul of man, and in the form that he perceives them, or, more accurately, believes them, they truly occurred.  According to this explanation, the certainty of the completion of the content of the meeting is clear: love is aroused in man, and this is not imagination but rather a real meeting between father and son with all the accompanying real manifestation.  The accompanying real manifestation understood from the expressions: "I forgive," "You are mine," "draws a protective circle about its steps," "to feel God's right hand coming to meet it," and "the peace which it has found in his eyes" (Star 212, 214, 215, 216).   We have shown that if there is no belief, the force which constructs the fact, there is nothing, and if belief exists, everything can be explained by it since the force of the belief-fact and reality and one the same:

 For that which is grounded in a past is, in its presentness too, a visible reality, andnot merely internal.  The presentness of the miracle of revelation is and remains its content; its historicity, however, is its ground and its warrant…  Now it also finds the highest certainty possible for it, but only in this, its historicity….  Experienced belief only comes to rest in this certainty of having been long ago summoned…. For in the world of things it recognizes the substantial ground of its belief in the immovable factuality of a historical event. (Star 215)6 

                The force of the fact is consciousness of reality, and that reality exists as a result of this force.  We believe, for example, in the splitting of the atom into electrons and other tiny particles from which emerge inestimably enormous amounts of energy, and we use this energy in reality because of that belief.  A sick person who wants to be healed must believe, first of all, that he will get better; to Rosenzweig, it was the principal and primary medical care he received during his very creative period in which he was physically paralyzed except for one finger.  Man who wants to be free, happy in the love of his God, and successful, must initially believe in all of these things.  He must first realize his purpose, which is belief - the force which comprises experiential factuality.  Man, by means of this force, perceives his world-existing reality and its relationship to God and man, reality in which he is not only part but even the midpoint.  Belief as the building force of experiential fact is focused on the private "I" that is in man.  The next characteristic will clarify this private and personal nature.

LIST OF SOURCE MATERIAL ABBREVIATIONS

Kook, Abraham Yitzhak HaCohen. Adar Hyikar Ikvei HaTson. Jerusalem: Mossad H'Rav Kook, 1967.

Ikvei HaTson

Kook, Abraham Yitzhak HaCohen. Igrot H'Raia [Letters of Rabbi A.Y. HaCohen]. Jerusalem: Mossad H'Rav

Igrot H'Raia

Soloveichik, Rabbi J. B. Ish HaEmunah [Man of Faith]. Jerusalem: Rav Kook Inst., 1968.

Ish HaEmunah

Rosenzweig, Franz. Naharayim [Selected Writings of Franz Rosenzweig]. Trans. Yehoshua Amir. Jerusalem: Bialik Inst., 1977.

Naharayim

Rosenzweig, Franz. The Star of Redemption. 2d ed. Trans. William W. Hallo. New York: U of Notre Dame P, 1985.

Star

Rosenzweig, Franz. Sechzig Hymnen und Gedichte Des Jehuda Halevi [Sixty Hymns and Poems of Jehuda Halevi].  Deutsch, mit einem Nachwort und mit Anmerkungen [German, with an Epilogue and with Remarks], Konstanz: Oscar Wohrle Verlag, 1924.

Sechzig Hymnen

Kauffman, Y. Toldot haEmunah haIsraelit  (History of Jewish Thought). Jerusalem: Bialik Inst., 1973.

Toldot HaEmunah

1  Tikkun Sofrim ["Scribal emendation"], chapter 18, section 22, also according to the Septuagint and Samaritan   translation.

2  For a more detailed explanation, see, my artical :THE PRR CONTIONS OT METIN BETWEEN MAN  GOD "Table of Verbs".

3  See my artical : Rosenzweig`s philosophical  "On the Difficulties which Gave Birth to Existentialism."

4   See also, Rivka Horowitz's reservations about this statement in her article "Tefisat ha-historia haYehudit" (5).

5  For more information, see my artical:THE PRR CONTIONS OT METIN BETWEEN MAN  GOD , which discusses the soul of man.

6  For more information, see my artical: "On The Purpose of Man".

דף הבית

דף הבית

THE CHARACTERISTIC OF SUDDENNESS©

Abstract

 The article part 3 will continue discuss the aspects of the dialogue meeting. Rozenzweig changes the historical meeting (revelation at Mt. Sinai) to a personal one. The meeting is real, factual, not figurative, and does not depend on what happened before. It is a suddent event, an axis between the past creation and the future redemption. The present time makes the reality of the meeting firm. The meeting takes man from the pole of pessimism to that of optimism. The dialogue gives man purpose. Love arises out of the dialogue between man and God. Understand this view of love explains the inner certainty of faith that a man experiences and the reality of such dialogue for the man.

Suddenness guarantees the vitality of the meeting

The piece of parchment that was found spoke of the religious experience of man, his communication with God as a sudden event. The experience of Pascal is comparable to the framework of the experience of Rosenzweig. It is a significant confirmation since it indicates precisely the basis of the vital characteristic of the meeting—the sudden, of the momentary occurrence which seizes man with all the vigor of the full moment:

. . . fire!

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob (Toldot HaPhilosophia 192).

            Fire and the exclamation point after it indicates the power of the vitalizing surprise of the meeting. The meeting appears unknowingly and unintentionally as a present of pure truth resulting from the depths of the soul of a man of faith. Speech in the meeting is vital since something unexpected and new penetrates with each response. It is this which guarantees its vitality. Thus, Rosenzweig questioned the Platonic dialogue, which he called slumbering dialogue, which was truly nothing other than dialogue which divided roles. Without suddenness with its ever present renewal as faith of the individual, religion could likely become a burden, and its reason for being would likely cease. And without the immediate communication which seizes the soul “like lightening” (Naharayim 230), religion would become a lifeless god in the world of creation, a strange and magical fact which assures its proponents a certain measure of success, without considering the spiritual aspirations and attainments. For, again, their hearts are not open to the great truths, the embodiment of which is the object and purpose of religion. They do not understand that in addition to the revealed aspect of religion, there is also a domain of truth in which “whim” (Star 197) is embodied as lightening in the belief experience. The lightening experience revives the soul, which is what happened to Rosenzweig in the synagogue in Berlin on the eve of Yom Kippur. There, depressed, he found as “fate bursting forth” (Star 193) his eternal longing for the truth, which did not permit him to remain without vital belief. 1 Nahum Glatzer, who was very close to Rosenzweig in his last years, noted that Rosenzweig experienced in that Yom Kippur prayer a conversionary experience; he attained “certainty that man does not reach thorough analysis, he indicates an event intense and immediate” (“Conversion” 72).

Speech as sudden characteristic

            Among all the language in the indicative mood there comes suddenly the mood of the imperative: “let there be”! “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3) is fate bursting forth. It is the light of the candle of God in the sudden renewal of man’s new soul with the profusion of his love for God and God’s love for man. Speech as manifestation of the content of the meeting is previously expected: In the actual conversation, something happens: I do not know even what I shall say. However, prior thereto man must be, according to Rosenzweig, in the framework of belief thought, that is—biblical and not pagan. He must know what is above and what is below, what is in front and what is behind. But it is impossible to prepare in the manner set forth by Maimonides as the way to prepare for prophecy (The Guide, ed. Ibn Tibon, pt. 2, ch. 36–37). The response to my fellow speaker is an act that I did not expect previously and commences only at the moment he concluded speaking. The suddenness of the conversion demonstrates the independence of the speech of man; human language is influenced by the lack of logic, which is one of the marks of this independence. It is as if language is created alongside man, and he only utilizes it. Language is not dependent on logic.

The content of the meeting is not expected previously

            The content of the meeting is not capable of being prepared beforehand by man, since love has no laws. There is no ladder, no preparation of tradition and there is no intellectuality. The meeting as content for love is a sudden occurrence without any preparation. It is “fate bursting forth” as nullification and negation of the moment which immediately precedes this one. The phenomenon of love is “a destiny not ‘destined’ but suddenly there and yet as inescapable in its suddenness as though it were destined from of yore” (Star 193). “Whim” (Star 197) belongs only to the soul of the beloved and not to God because his creating is not supposed to be caprice. Just as the caprice of God becomes ever-present power so, too, does His eternal essence become whim to love that is awakened anew every moment.

            The experience of man as lightning will come, and it will not give man the fulmination of experience of experience, for it is forever present, darkened to the past, not expecting a future, for it is only present. Furthermore, the moments of whim which seize the lover and the beloved is like the death of him who seizes. And all who wait for love are promised “that it [love] will never strike man like lightning” (Naharayim 230). Love—spontaneous, bursting forth, is expropriated of all calculation and surprises, “for the thing was done suddenly” (Chron. 29:36). In this suddenness of the moment, the lover and the beloved forget the past and the future, they live the immediate moment: “For love alone is at once such fateful domination over the heart in which it stirs, and yet so newborn, initially so without a past, so wholly sprung from the moment which it fulfills, and only from that moment” (Star 193). The trait of suddenness must occur in the present. The following section concerns the time characteristic of the meeting.

THE TIME CHARACTERISTIC

Time—the mode of action of the meeting

            No longer does the logical concept of non-time effectuate the nearness of God to man; rather time, that is, occurrence of speech, assures the realization of the meeting. Thus, one sees in time (as category of occurrence) the true dimension of the law of man’s meeting with God. Time in the meeting is not perceived as a previously given and defined dimension, a sort of form permitting the manifestation of things one after the other, but time itself receives its definition and meaning through meeting experience. The encounter does not only occur in time, but time itself occurs: “For time is made in it entirely real. Not in time occurs everything which takes place, but it, time itself occurs” (Naharayim 228). The meeting is not only of the present, it is present-being, itself; therefore, no experimental event can occur without a connection with time. In every eventful act, the dimension of time of necessity is involved. Every action is executed in some time. Every action happens in a time frame, but we cannot learn from this that the time is action, but rather that the action is the time itself. Creation is an act that occurred in the past, revelation of the meeting occurs in the present, and redemption will take place in the future. Time is not an utterance of thought of language, rather it is involved in it in an active manner: “The new thinking cannot know without a connection to time” (Naharayim 229). The most important representative of existential thought is presently martin Heidegger, whose book Being and Time can be compare in a number of points with Star of Redemption (see “Investigation” 13–52). Rosenzweig emphasizes, vis-?-vis what God did, what He does, What He will do, what occurred, and what will occur to Him and what is occurring to man and what God will do in the future, that all of these are not to be disconnected from the dimension of time (Naharayim 229).

The present is time in the fullness of its real, vital meaning

            Present time makes the meeting real, vital and significant; “(of all three tenses, past, present, and future) only the present is time in the fullness of its meaning . . . and just as the images of the idols extend to us until the present as created past, there also exists in the present external images in which lies the redemptive future” (Naharayim 235). Present time, states Rosenzweig, relates to the doctor who treats a patient, revelation of the disease is past and determining his death and future. “If one tries to use non-time consciousness and remove knowledge from the diagnosis, and experience, from the cure—daring and recalcitrance, and from prognosis—doubt and hope, his efforts will be in vain” (Naharayim 229). But in the meeting, “the lightning of experience is forever present” (Naharayim 229). The ever-present aspiration of Rosenzweig for the “present,” for the “now,” is characteristic of all spheres of his philosophy, from his relationship to the Torah and commandments to his metaphysical thoughts. It is the source of his opinion on the matter of “the analysis of language,” for the language of the lover which occurs in the dialogue of the meeting from its nature, is conducive to occurring only in the present”; “. . . ‘God loves’ is present, pure and simple . . . God’s love is ever wholly of the moment . . .” (Star 197). The new thought embodies, in essence, speech, which is occurrence in time, and in the meeting it must be in the present. Rosenzweig gives grammar much importance as manifestation of the operation of temporality on the being of language. Grammar is not something logical, that one can derive a priori, rather it is the time-historic imprint of language of the meeting: “Accordingly a genuine arrangement is necessary (for the expression of language), an arrangement which is not internal but rather adduced for grammar, and in a certain sense for language altogether, from without, that is, from the role of language as against reality” (Star 161). The foundation of the belief philosophy on language, speech and conversation necessitates time and the now since the speech of the meeting occurs in the vital present tense: “Only then—as the expression of a revelation occurring then and thee, and no longer as the testimonial to a revelation that has occurred altogether—will the thing emerge from its substantive past into its vital present” (Star 195). Thus, the contents of the meeting are like a command to love, since the imperative is the domain of the language of the pure present. The love of the imperative knows only the moment and expects nothing from the future, for if it were otherwise, it would become law: “’God loves’ is present, pure and simple.” Rosenzweig suggests, for example, that the lyric, secretive and concealed between lover and the beloved in Songs of Songs is expressed in short sentences like the imperatives . . . “draw me” . . . “rise” . . . “go” . . . “open” . . . and each is in the present.  The imperative vitalizes the meeting since it is forever present: “A downpour of imperatives descends on this green pasture of the present and vitalizes it” (Star 233). If were only past, it would not be that which the lover does to love: “pure, unadulterated present” (Star 198). Creation, which symbolized death, is vanquished by the present every moment.

            What is the difference between the present and the moment? The present vis-?-vis itself always becomes past, but momentary present, ever-present new moment, is present. This is the forever-ness which was discussed in the section on the dynamic characteristic. The moment is not stuck in one event forever; rather, it is of continuous activity. The occurrence takes place in the moment and not only in the present of the moment which tomorrow becomes past. It is within the power of the moment and not of he present “to transfix God in the Bright, the Manifest, the Unconcealed, in short in the present. And by doing so, he lets God’s concealedness sink into the past once and for all. “Now God is present, present like the moment, like every moment, and therewith he proceeds to be come ‘matter of fact’—something which as creator he had not yet truly been and which even now he only begins to become—like the gods of the heathen behind the ramparts of their mythology (that is, revealed, seen)” (Star 195).

            The present grasps the place of the past in the sense of turning the potential into the kinetic, concealedness to revelation. “As act, creation was founded, and as result it climaxed, in the past. To this tense there here corresponds in dominant fashion the present” (Star 217). It is now understood why love must be linked to the moment—it is man’s momentariness. It is a loved being because of the momentary present. The ever-present nature of continuous momentariness or incessant present provides eternal serene duration to the beloved. “It knows itself loved ‘forever.”’ For it felt loved every moment and only in the ever-presentness of the moment.

THE POLAR CHARACTERISTIC

The time of momentary present which served as the pivot of vital reality of the meeting, which was discussed in the prior section, is based on the axial principle of Rosenzweig, according to which the meeting is an axis between the past creation and the future redemption. From the polarity of the past and present, Rosenzweig can attain the dynamic and real consideration in his discussion of the meeting between God and man.

Polarity—guarantor of man’s experience

. . . only because of the midpoint there rose in the world without boundaries a circumscribed dwelling place, a small plot of land between four stakes of the tent, its fly going and broadening continually. Only in this view are the beginning and end changed from the concept of bounded to that of infinite—from corner-stone to everlasting possession, and let the beginning be “creation” and the end “redemption.” (Naharayim 213)

. . . this is a world lacking specific midpoint, a world of right and left, front and back, such that any thing at any time is likely to be right and left, front and back. The instantaneous goes forward and backwards; this is the world whose lofty spirit teaches man to know his brother in the silences of the thickets and the recesses of the waters. (Naharayim 211)

“Only because of the midpoint,” according to Rosenzweig, can the reality of the meting “know” in its occurrence the significant and absolute reality.

Rosenzweig renews a methodological innovation be setting, as a foundation of the structure of the method, the polarity between the “midpoint” and the “near”, the “revealed” and the “hidden”, past and present, tale and revelation, monologue and dialogue, occurrence and experience, doubt and certainty, suffering and bliss, darkness and light, pagan philosophy and theology.

            Only this polarity, bound in the personal ark or religious belief, permits one to prepare an objective system which is consistent with reality: In its groundless presentness, revelation must now permanently touch the ground. This ground lies beyond its presentness, that is, in the past, but revelation itself renders it visible only from within the presentness of experience” (Star 214). This sentence emphasizes the connection between revelation, which is groundless presentness, and reality, which relates to it as fixed from the past—beyond the presentness of the occurring meeting (revelation). In other words, the polarity provides the meeting with something like an act of mercy, an occurrence which can be experienced in direct presentness, which is not of itself the subject of cognition.

            The objects in creation of the first pole do not exist on their own, disconnected from the essence of the meeting which occurs in the life of religious man, since creation has a central place in religion; it is the concept which marks revelation of the meeting not as an act occurring in the present but as a meeting which took place in time past: “Rather revelation remembers back to its past, while at the same time remaining wholly of the present; it recognizes its past as part of a world passed by” (Star 215). This first pole, which is the first revelation of God’s meeting with the universe, occurs in the second pole of the meeting as direct, vital manifestation of God as the assemblage of the objectivity of creation. Only from this position is the meeting revealed. Only from the polar variations can we learn of the religious meaning of the creation in the revelation of the meeting. It is the meaning of the concluded pagan world which became the beginning revitalized by the vital God of creation; the silent, obstinate essence itself in the sinking of tragic man is made into a soul which speaks and hears and loves, and is the beloved who is released in the meeting in the present. It is the meaning of the plastic world, of art that became creation which will find its adjustment in the redemption that will always come (D’Varim b’Go 422).

            In this sense, the polarity is emphasized in the distant and completed, the accomplished and the absolute being made into the proximate, which attains its existence from ever present occurrence, which renews itself every moment. For the meeting is rooted precisely in the pole which contradicts it, and in that its power and right to exist is experimental, real and ever present. The possible yields its place to the certain; the vague and the segmented yield to the revealed and the complete; the principle becomes a course (A=A or B=B becomes A=B man-God becomes revelation [meeting]) (Naharayim 211).

Idolatry is made a lie when it demands for itself to be “perfection”, complete truth. The meeting “as beginning” ended forever the closed and particular world given to definition as we know it in pagan and logical thought. The polarity provides the meaning of “creatio ex nihilo” whose source is in creation; with the power of the pole of creation that determined the relationship between God and the world, the configured world of the metalogic Weltanschauung would thus have to be really “Nought” (Star 156). Only the idea of polarity tears the world from its elemental closedness and opens new horizons be disclosure of the experiential factuality in the opposite pole.

            It is now very clear why Rosenzweig commenced his book with the sentence about death (Star 45), more precisely, about the fear of death, and concluded his work with the slogan “into life” (Star 437). The first pole, death, demonstrates perfectly to man his individual reality and existence. In death or the fear of death man in creation is solitary, silenced, withdrawn, and lacks the love of God. he is like a dead person whose mouth is closed like a god who either feels or reacts. It is a framework lacking the unexpected. Thus, death is placed first, for it is not “Nought”, but is something: “. . .  and truthfully death is not what it seems, not Nought, but a something from which there is no equal . . .” (Star 46).¹ It is, again, to demonstrate the source of the reality that only from it life germinates and not from philosophical and logical speculations of which he wrote disparagingly in the first chapter of his book. this “something” is existentialism as Heidegger defined it: a “race” (“vorlaufen”) whose goal is death.

            Every man, when created, is essentially sentenced to death, because this is the singular reality of absolute truth of his life. Rosenzweig did  not matter-of-factly place his entire philosophical method between the two extremities of death and life. According to Rosenzweig, this polar tension only grounds and assures the ultimate path “into life”: “This is a world lacking a specific midpoint, a world of right and left, front and back such that any thing at any time is likely to be right and left, front and back. The instantaneous goes forward and backwards; this is the world whose lofty spirit teaches man to know his brother in the silences of the thickets and the recesses of the waters,” “Only in this view are the beginning and the end changed from the concept of bounded to that of infinite—from corner-stone to everlasting possession, and let the beginning be ‘creation’ and the end ‘redemption’” (Naharayim 211, 213). Therefore, Rosenzweig calls the short epilogue of his book “Gate” (Star 432), though the discussion about the problem of death is in the beginning of the book.

            Rosenzweig thinks that all reality of life is nourished by the feeling of the reality of death: the soul dies first and is resurrected in the eternal arms of God, its lover: “Man dies his way into the lover and is resurrected in him” (Star 197). The meeting gains its power from the fear of death, and furthermore, the vitality of the meeting results from this consciousness. This explains the renewed birth, which is a prior condition of the soul dying with the fear of death and being resurrected like a new birth in the arms of the beloved. Love, in fact, draws its strength from the strength of death since “love is strong as death” (Star 190).

Polarity as a product of the unification of the fixed and absolute point of meetings

            “[The meeting] is, then a midpoint, a fixed and standing point. Why? Because it happens to be the solid, silent fixed point, without touch, to the obstinate ‘I,” with vitality, like ‘such am I and not another’, that is, o my freedom that is entirely my complete, obdurate, impermeable freedom’ (Naharayim213). “Because all reality . . . is called to freedom . . .” (Naharayim 220). “This is the point of momentary time which has no beginning and no afterwards but rather its world middle. Both because of its afterwards, the world is ‘infinite’” (Naharayim 213), “because of the everlasting power of God” (Star 193), “infinite in space because of the beginning and infinite in time for the afterwards” (Naharayim 213).

            Crescas, in Ohr HaShem², uses an axial description in a manner similar to that of Rosenzweieg: “(The axis is similar to) roots on which to rest the Torah and the poles on which it will sit” (7). The axis, according to Rosenzweig, is similar to a fixed geometrical point pursuant to which is determined the place of every point in the plane, and it’s description of the four wedges of the tent is comparable to the point of the meeting of two separate tangential circles, in direct relationship, which passes via two contact points, and is called the axis of that pole (Naharayim 213).

            In the geometric description, as it were, of the framework of polarity, Rosenzweig notes the polar structure of the life of faith which is summarized in the absolute, unified experimental encounter of man with his God³: “For idolatry is nothing other than coagulation of veritable revelation of the moment of the true-God in existing God-likeness, which stands due to this existence in the face of the will of revelation . . .” (Naharayim 40). The first pole contains in closed form the content of the pole which differs from it. The polar duality becomes unified in the pivot of the religious encounter, as was well formulated in Psalms (8:6): “what is man, that Thou art mindful of him?” and its addition “for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and Thou crownest him with glory and honor.” In this connection, Jeremiah’s call is very clear: “Am I not a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?” (Jer. 23:23). Also, very clear is the connection of the song of the seraphim in Isaiah (6:3): “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the fullness of the whole earth declareth his glory,” in which we hear explicitly of the (holy) transcendence of the creator as well as his immanence (the Master who fills the whole earth).¹⁸

            In “midpoint,” which on one hand is the past and on the other hand the future, is fixed the principle of unification of the “I,” the Tetragrammaton, that occurs in the meaning of Man and God:

Am Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name, what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said, moreover, unto Moses, Thus shalt say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. (Exod. 3:13–15)

            The pole of the future which is the coming generations and the pole of the past which is the generations of long ago are bound tightly by the unity of the “I” in the present (the meeting of the “I” of man with God). The individual in the present exists thanks to the polar action of memorization and anticipation which “cause to be” the generations which were and will be within him. The grandfathers and the grandchildren together sustain life for self-faithfulness and consciousness of the ‘I” in the meeting. This is the foreverness that burst into time. This is the blood tie (Blutsgemeinschaft) which passes from father to son. See Star, page 323: “It must produce itself in its own time and reproduce itself forever. It must make its life everlasting in the succession of generations, each producing the generation to come, and bearing witness to those gone by (the German word Zeugen relates to bear a child and bear witness). . . . It must be a blood-community, because only blood gives present warrant to the hope for a future. Anticipation of the future is possible for the Jewish People as a result of procreation.) Glatzer expressed this well: “Judaism is the non-historic segment cast into history” (HisLife 114). Or, phrased differently, “Israel is the symbol of eternity in history” (Jewish Philosophy 2:240).

            The pivot of this meeting is not only the unity of time in the eternity of the individual but of the Judaism of the individual and of Israel generally. This is the axial trinity of Yahweh (the Tetragrammaton) “He was, He is, He will be.” It is self-faithfulness that was guided in the path of the past, the present and the future. There is always need of “transmitting the past under the rod of criticism of the present—for the sake of the future (Naharayim 80).

            From within the pivot “love your God” man acts in the world and adjusts the kingdom of God by “love your neighbor” in that it brings the entire creation closer to redemption via the absolute of the pivot of the encounter. This polarity is woven in the threads of lineage; in it are not only the woven in the circle of the individual but of all the nation to come. The polarity indicates two meanings of the “I.” One says that the “I” is located in the polar opposite of the “he,” and the second says that “I” and “he” are one “I.” The first definition is the reality of pagan creation and the second is the manifestation of creation for revelation; it is the system of solidarity between the two poles according to Rosenzweig, which Rosenzweig explains by means of mathematical analogies, in this event the analogies being B=A and all B=A emerges in B=B. An understanding of Rosenzweig’s mathematical analogies can be attained from the contents of his letter to Rudolf Ehrenburg of November 18, 1917. In that letter, while explaining the dialectic of Hegel, Rosenzwieg sets forth the formula of existence.¹⁹

  THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE MEETING

            The polarity also summarizes the consequences of the meeting.

The meeting carries man from the pessimistic pole to the pole of optimism. The dialogue provides man with purpose. Rosenzweig considers the life of man depressing until man meets God. he is not satisfied with his existence in his generation, among his people; he wants to continue to exist as an individual and distinctive as a personality. He sees the abyss and wants to hang a bridge leading out, and he wants to overcome his cessation. He wants to cause his dimness to shine, to turn his coming to going, to produce fro the absolute Nought the Aught and the eternal “yes”—he communicates with the absolute Nought. This is the integral consequence of the essence of the polarity between pessimism and optimism.

The consequence of association

            Nothing is so heavy a burden on man as living in creation, mute, enclosed, and alone. It is like living in “total rest”, not being activated, without association, without distraction and task, and without bursting forth of the miracle. For then he feels his nothingness, his forsakenness, his cessation, the dust and ashes of his being, his end as a dying man, the helplessness, his emptiness and fear of the unknown. There rises immediately from the foundation of this soul his gloom, sorrow and loneliness, the feeling of the absence of love, doubt and shame.

            Such is life in creation, life separated from all, with no relationship between man and God. This separation is the reason for the feeling of gloom and absence of satisfaction of the soul. Separation exists within the “I” following the lack of coordination between the conscious soul (the intellect) and the unconscious soul (belief); there is an absence of connection between the “I” and God, between the “I” and the world.

            Contented man is one who is not stricken by these two, whose personality is not divided within itself and does not shudder from the fear of the unexpected, The soul is tied to God and is not separated in the knowing experimental sense “. . . I know myself loved. And this acknowledgment is already the highest bliss for it, for it encompasses the certainty the God loves it” (Star 212). A man like this feels, in his joining with God, like a citizen of the world and son of God, benefiting undisturbedly from the abundance of love that God showers upon him, constructing his path to the world. He is no longer inundated with thoughts about death and whether God loves him because he does not feel himself disengaged from the absolute, eternal and loving reality and even will not feel, because of this, disconnected from those who follow him: “Now and forever more it will remain in God’s proximity” (Star 215).

This profound, intensive and instinctive association with the divine “I” provides the loftiest of pleasures—the feeling of being loved. The lifeless image now becomes itself filled with the life which it hitherto only aroused in the spectator, and thus it come alive. Now it can open its mouth and speak.

The consequence of love

            At the meeting, man hears the command: “love me,” and since “it can open its mouth and speak,” it answers, saying, “I am a sinner”; it overcomes the doubt of God’s love. It dares to proceed from its confession of the past to a general confession of the present. It is certain of the response, and in the light of the presence of its love, it purifies itself. It is certain of his love. Its acknowledgement is not acknowledgement of the absence of love and is not even a general acknowledgement, rather it is a notification that it is loved. This acknowledgement is the confession of love, which is the highest bliss for it, for it encompasses the certainty that God loves it: “nothing short of acknowledgement carries the soul off into bliss of being loved” (Star 211). Following the presence of this love, it can attest to God with absolute certainty.

            It comes to the confession of belief that comprehends experiential consciousness that “God is”—the God of its love is truly God and not fantasy. The soul, which went astray in the world with eyes open and forever dreamless, is now, and in the future will be, engulfed in God’s proximity. Now it knows; it need but stretch out engulfed in God’s proximity. Now it knows; it need but stretch out its right hand in order to feel God’s right hand coming to meet it.

The soul found claim and peace in his eyes (Star 234). “God gives himself to the soul” (Star 202). The peace of God is given to the soul. “She is his and thus she knows of him: he is mine” (Star 234). The soul is at peace in the love of God, like a child in the arms of its mother.

            In summary, the beloved feels itself borne and secure in the love of the lover. It knows itself loved at every moment only because it knows itself loved “forever.” Being loved is the very air in which it lives. The vital moment to Rosenzweig in respect of God is found in the Torah in Exod. 34:6 and Num. 14:18, in which God is described as “most merciful.” The world was created, according to Jewish conception, as a result of the kindness of God: “A world of mercy he will build.”⁵ The Creator’s mercy fills the world, in the words of the poet of Psalm 33; and God “maintains life with mercy” as stated in the 18 benedictions, recited by Jews three times a day. The divine creation must do well, otherwise everything will end in destruction. Without obeying God, the loving soul, the effort of human creation is likely to end in failure. Rosenzweig already learned this lesson from Genesis because of the disobedience to God (the soul); it is said there that Adam was driven from the Garden of Eden to work in the sweat of his brow until he will subdue good, possessed land. Disobedience and sin, which separated man and God. Thus, Rosenzweig eradicates the sin from the soul of man and his surroundings, that is, mankind. The knowledge that is eternal and existing proves to be a vital, creative force by tearing the lover’s own love away from that moment and “eternalizing” it once and for al. Love warms the stone-cold past from its rigor mortis. The living soul, loved by God, triumphs over death. For love is strong as death. The bridegroom standing below the “huppa” (the wedding canopy), wears his shroud in order to proclaim war with death and that he is as daring as it. On the holidays of revelation, the Jew wears his shroud and is accompanied by the wine of the meal, the joy of children and songs—here, too, he turns his nose up at death. Death is a basic force in the world, but man can overcome it. Such is the consequence of the meeting and even the summary, the essence, of its tale. Love can bring blessed acknowledgement with the power of the soul. Rebelliousness becomes faith, in which man responds to the love of God, and he maintains, with all his strength, his love for God.

            The certainty of God’s love brings the soul to prayer. Prayer is a result of the consciousness that God loves the soul. Prayer is an overflow of the most perfect trust of the soul. Prayer is the highest bliss that man can attain. The soul merits prayer with the certainty of the kindness of God’s love to it. With the feeling of security and prayer comes the completely pacified belief. The soul now praises God’s name forever, attests to him and praises his glorious name, his unbounded greatness:

Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion subsisteth throughout all generations. . . . The Lord is near to those who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and save them. The Lord preserveth all those who love Him; but He will destroy all the wicked.6

            The soul knows how to pray: “Blessed be God who does not remove my prayer and his mercy from me” (Star 216). Prayer is not limited by any means to the relationship of bliss between man and his God, but also manifests the bond between man and the world, that is, all mankind. From prayer we move to the universal consequence, which follows in the next section.

  The consequence of universality

            A consequence of the meting is to bring man closer to the universalism of the whole world. Love of God in the meeting is learned afterwards as love of one’s fellow man and all mankind. The man-world relationship is the path of redemption which ultimately vanquishes death. For only redemption is the final victory over it, “before these cries of triumph death is driven to nothing” (Dat H’Tvuna 280; see Star 197). One prophet who contributed much to the sublime of redemption of the world on Israel was Jeremiah. Rosenzweig’s religious, philosophical idea is like the principle of the prophets. Jeremiah believed in bringing all peoples to serve the true God, the one and unique God, as a result of a personal, internal reformation from the consciousness of the nothingness of their idols. The next chapter will discuss the universal consequence—redemption, and will complete the circle which commenced with God and returns to him. The world and man unify into one with God and with eternity.

Summery

The thought of death, the absolute certainty that binds us all, propels man’s search for absolute reality. The logic that Life comes from Life is proof of God’s existence and reciprocal love with God is man’s natural and eternal relationship with God.

Tactility of exclamatory present-tense language provides the combustion of spontaneous feeling to fortify the natural eternal bond of the lover and beloved. This moment is enshrined forever as a “realization” and does not decay as that particular “present” is condemned to. In fact, being written down, the timeless quality of these words leap into the heart at any future reading. This becomes a timeless “now” moment devoted to the relationship of the lover and the beloved and is transcendentally and eternally vital.

As we have seen, one can only truly comprehend and feel love if one is rooted to the immediacy of the moment. The moment forges a realization. Consequently, we understand how the semantics of prayer and scripture are to initiate bliss and enhance the mood of love of God.

1Compare Heidegger, Being and Time, 314, sec 49. “Das M?gliche Ganzein des Daseins und das Sein sum Tode,” and, in particular: “Vorlaufen die M?glichkeit des Todes” (“with the possibility of racing towards death”), key elements of Heidegger’s thought.

2 Chasdai crescas (1340–1410) Ohr HaShem: Introduction. See, also, Klazkin thesaurus Philosophicus I: 158–166.

3 See Star 148, 166, 186, 192, 200, 211, 214, 216, 219, and see 233: “Drawn to its matter of creation into revelation and revelation rises to its matter above creation.”

4 Compare, Crescas, Ohr HaShem, art. 1, ch. 2, which explains this verse in Isaiah as follows: “Because his being is holy and distinct . . . his splendor fills the earth.”

5 The explanation given by the Rabbinical Sages to Ps. 89;2. See Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 58B.

6 From the “Ashrai” prayer, the recitation Verse Siddur 252 and Ps. 145.

LIST OF SOURCE MATERIAL ABBREVIATIONS

דף הבית

Abstract

 The article will discuss he ultimate purpose of man – the dialogue between man and the world with love constituting the content of this dialogue. After man gives his love to God, he can give love to his fellow-man, which love redeems the world and becomes the purpose of man. Redemption designs the future, but Rozenzweig wanted to bring the designs for the future to the present so that the redemption could be something the living man sees and experiences now. Expectation causes the future to be manifested in the present, and dismay preserves the power of and nourishes the soul.

 Redemption occurs wherever man is. The love given by a skilled man to another is no on account of any physical trait, it is given because the person is present now. His presence allows the skilled man to go out to all the world, thus every friend is a microcosm for the entire world. Man must take his future salvation and put it into the present. He can do it only be developing his love for other. He must do this through socialization, and communal prayer is the way to make time eternal. Every can unite as "we", and together mankind overcome suffering and death so that the Eternal Kingdom is here in the present world and not is some another world. This is the victory of live over death. This is the purpose of man.

After man gives his love to God, he can give love to his fellow-men.  Rosenzweig describes this in the third tract in his book (Star).  This love given to others redeems the world, and that becomes the purpose of man.

Eternal man – the universal religious experience

            Man’s purpose is to perpetuate his acquired love, since its externalization no longer grows in the “I” and “Thou,” but longs to be founded in the presence of all the world.  Love forever exists between two people; it knows only of the “I” and “Thou” and not of the street, nor is it displayed to “the eyes of everything that lives” (Star 234).  According to the Sanctification of God’s name portion of the Sabbath additional service:  “[He will save us and redeem us a second time] and in His mercy let us hear a second time, in the presence of all the living” (Rinat Yisrael 268).  The sobs of the beloved penetrate beyond love, to a future beyond its present revelation.  It is insufficient, maintains Rosenzweig, “that the beloved lover calls his bride by the name of the sister in the flickering twilight of illusion.  The name ought to be the truth.  It should be heard in the bright light of ‘the street,’ not whispered into the beloved’s ear in the dusk of intimate duo-solitude, but in the eyes of the multitude…” (Star 234).  Past love, then, does not provide God’s truth in the eyes of the multitude; that love is not eternal.

            Man’s purpose is manifested in the questioning cry:  “O that you were like a brother to me!” (Star 234), and not in the pronouncement, “she is his… he is mine” (Star 234), nor even in the call, “my God, my God” (Star 215), in the individual’s prayer.  In the bothersome question, “O that you were like a brother to me,” the soul seeks its purpose in the world.  The soul fears that the response will not come from the lover the soul trusts.  The soul expresses its yearning for an eternal love that can never spring from the everlasting presentness of sensation in the meeting between man and God.

            The soul desires its object, pleading “with the lover to sunder the heavens of his everlasting presentness which defies her yearning for love eternal, and to descend to her, so that she might set herself like an eternal seal upon his ever-beating heart and like a tightly fitting ring about his never resting arm” (Star 234).  Rosenzweig hints at matrimony not being love.  “Matrimony is infinitely more than love.  Matrimony is the external fulfillment which love reaches out after from her internal blissfulness in a stupor of unquenchable longing – Oh that you were my brother…” (Star 234).  Notwithstanding the cry “O that you were like a brother to me,” there is no answer from the lover’s mouth.

            In the love of the I and Thou, the dark portents of the impersonal communal life of the natural kinship community had been beautifully fulfilled; but here the soul aspires beyond this love to the realm of brotherliness, the bond of supernatural community, wholly personal in its experience yet wholly worldly in its existence.  This realm can no longer be founded for her by the love of the lover from which she had previously always awaited the cue for her answer.  If this longing is to be fulfilled, then the beloved soul must always cross the magic circle of belovedness, forget the lover, and itself open its mouth, not for answer but for her own word.  For in the world, being loved does not count, “and the beloved must know itself, as it were, thrown on its own resources” (Star 235).

            The concept of eternity, man’s object and purpose, is of special importance in the philosophy of Rosenzweig.  Can it be that “eternity is actually there, within the grasp of every individual and holding every individual close in its strong grasp…”? (Star 346).  Can some thing which has an end, like man in respect of his being man, grasp that which has no end?  Can the realm of time comprehend the concept of eternity, can the relative discern the absolute?  The part does not understand the whole.  Where the intellect does not govern, faith seizes its place, since what we do not understand, we must of necessity believe:  “…[for] there is something in the rational that is irrational, something which is not encompassed in the concept of truth… something of the rational which is beyond the rational (beyond in the logical sense)…” (Naharayim 208).

            Indeed, religious faith comes to perfect the intellect.  The rational explanation destroys the strength of belief.  Rosenzweig’s religious belief in eternity does not require the explanation of the essence of eternity; on the contrary, the rational explanation has a negative influence, as was shown above in Chapter Three (pp. 163-198).  All the other reasons which are proffered to explain eternity, in particular reasons based on the intellect (the rational), are nullified by the irrational reason relied upon by Rosenzweig.

            The irrational explanation of the concept “eternity”

            In Even-Shushan’s Hebrew dictionary, “netzach” (“eternity”) is defined as permanent existence, immortality, continually forever (2: 873).  Rosenzweig does not attempt to explain rationally these definitions; rather, he sharpens their irrational aspect.  Even-Shushan’s definition—permanent existence, continually forever¹ indicate that the present is dependent on time, a point Rosenzweig emphasizes.  “Eternity is just this:  that time no longer has a right to a place between the present moment and consummation and that the whole future is to be grasped today” (Star 350).  “… In opposition to the past, he places the eternal over which time has no control” (Naharayim 69).  Rabbi Yosef Albo states:  “[Eternity] is not dependent on time, in order to include both that which precedes it and everlastingness” (ch. 2, sec. 17).  In his book On the Eternity of Man, the well-known German thinker Max Schiller also insists on the significance of eternity in respect to the Creator.  His opinion that eternity is understood as a permanent existence for all times and therefore unrelated to time, is an insufficient explanation in respect to God, since in theory it is possible to attribute such a trait to that which contains material and strength.  Thus, eternity vis-à-vis God means “timeless,” and in the language of Rosenzweig, “growth has no relationship at all to time” (Star 254).  The laws of time do not apply to it.  Thus, eternity, unaltered, is found throughout the ever-changing periods of history (Schiller 188).  Contrarily, Spinoza holds that reality itself is eternity, and that it is grasped without any beginning or end.  Elsewhere, eternity is defined as “self-essence of God, in that it includes within it essential reality” (Spinoza Ethics 333).  Since eternity is not dependent on time, for it is the cessation of history, “the eternal can have no history, at most a prehistory” (Star 372).  Howeverm A. Altmann, in his article “Franz Rosenzweig on History,” states that the terms “future” and “eternal” kingdom provide meaning to history and do not negate its meaning.

            Eternity, being timeless, does not mean a very long time; it is Tomorrow that could as well be Today.  The growth of the world and the activity of the soul is made eternal, and that precisely makes it the origin of the future  as a sequence whose every occurrence is anticipated by that which preceded it:  “Denn Zur Zukunft gehärt vor allem das Vorwegnehmen, dies, daß das Ende jedem Augenblick erwartet warden muß.  Erst dadurch wird sie zur Zeit der Ewigkeit [For the future is first and foremost a matter of anticipating, that is, the end must be expected at every moment.  Only thus does the future become the time of eternity]” (Star 256; Stern, 288).  As an anticipation of the future, “today” is expressed as eternity, i.e., it is seen from the acknowledgment of God’s love in the prayer in the present that “his mercy is ever present” (Star 263).  Eternity can truly be realized not in distant time but “already today”; this phrase is the actual melodic content of the opening coda of the congregational chant (from Pesukei D’Zimrah for the Sabbath and Festivals, Siddur 402-428, based on Ps. 136), in which the future enters like an accompaniment to the theme.  Clear is the meaning of the verse “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7) in the sense that man has an end, as Nachmanides explained:  “The soul of man is the light of God who breathed into his nostrils from the mouth of God, as it is said, ‘and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’, and it will not die, rather its deserved existence shall remain forever.”²

            However, the interpretation of man’s eternity that Rosenzweig transfers to the present is not radically different from the understanding of Rabbi Yehuda Halevi in the Kuzari.  Prophecy serves Rabbi Yehuda Halevi as the best proof of eternal life.  By seeing the prophet as ready to feel in this world by means of his divine experience, a grain of the essence of eternal life, which is non-time, we become aware that time is not the true foundation of the spirit and its joys and that every man who proves himself suitable can gain the bliss of eternal life (article 1, p. 103; see also Ben-Shmuel 23).  Comparable is John Baillie, who states that this point (that time is not the true foundation of the spirit) “has no response; indeed, it is the singular point which is given or is likely to be given in favor of the remaining of the soul (or the concept of its eternity), …if the individual can come in contact with God means that he is important in God’s eyes; and if he is important in God’s eyes, he then has a part of God’s eternity” (137).

            Rosenzweig’s concept of eternity is a synthesis of space (endless time – Godlike) and time (terminal – humanlike).  After eternity grew in the interim time, it now becomes final time, God’s eternity.  A. Altmann (“Franz Rosenzweig on History”) argues that the present and the future simultaneously comprise eternity.  Eternity is not a fixed point which ultimately disappears.  Instead, it is a vital, existential dimension which continues forever and ever.  Eternity exists, then, as future with a component in the present.  Eternity is the “today” which knows that it is more than today.

            Eternity is that which exists within the moment, in the batting of an eye.  This is “eternity in every instant” (Augenblick).  Rosenzweig settles the conflict between “moment” and “eternity” by viewing moment as beginning anew in the moment that bloomed:  “The moment which we seek must begin again at the very moment that it vanishes…  For this purpose, it is not enough that it come ever anew.  It must not come now, it must come back.  It really must be the same moment.  The mere inexhaustibility of birth does not make the world the less perishable; on the contrary.  Thus this moment must have more of a content than the mere moment.  The moment reveals something new to the eye with every batting of an eye.  The novelty that we seek must be a nunc stans, not a vanishing moment thus, but a ‘stationary’ one” (Star 316).  Rosenzweig calls such a moment “hour,” and it “can already contain within itself the multiplicity of old and new, the fullness of moments.  Its end can merge back into its beginning because it has a middle, indeed many middle moments between its beginning and its end.”  In this manner, the hour becomes “a circle returning upon itself.”  In the hour, the moment becomes eternal, and in the same manner will turn the day, the week, the month and the year to hours of human life.  Each time they attain “an end at that which immediately becomes a beginning again” (Star 317).  Rosenzweig illustrates this idea by means of the agricultural seasons and by the recurring change from the days of the week to the Sabbath.  Though eternity is, in its essence, irrational, we can discern it in the unknown and hidden future and make it an integral part of the present today of man.

            This eternity is not merely a simplification of the relationship to world values, nor is it nihilism.  Eternity is pure monotheism, devotion to the sublime manifested in the establishment of a particular community:  “There is only one community in which … one cannot utter the ‘we’ of its unity without hearing deep within a voice that adds:  ‘the eternal.’  It must be a blood community, because only blood [i.e., continuity of the blood line from father to son down through generations] gives present warrant to the hope for a future” (Star 323).  Therefore, the people which can exist without a land and without language is the “eternal,” who are not tied to time and place.

Eternal attestation as universal content

            “… the Eternal per se.  In his mouth, ‘I am’ is like ‘I shall be’ and finds explanation in it” (Star 299).  Rosenzweig hints to us about the testimony of eternity from Exod. 3:14.  God reveals Himself to Moses, who asks Him His name.  God answers “I AM THAT I AM,” an expression which attests to His eternal existence.  In the biblical texts, God is explicitly called “netsach” (eternity), as, for example, in the verse, “And also the Strength (netzach) of Israel will not lie or repent…” (1 Sam. 15:29).  Biblical testimony attests to about six hundred thousand (Exod. 38:26) witnesses of the eternal element in Jewish man and the Jewish people.  If we delve into the history of the Jewish people and the course of its national and spiritual development, we find reasons for its faith in eternity and survival, which testifies to its perpetuity.  In biblical texts, the Jews were known as “the few among the people,” meaning they were weak in number.  Consequently, there was always fear of annihilation by the great powers.  Furthermore, at the beginning of their history, the Jews were wandering tribes.  It is natural that the deficiency in numbers would be compensated by increased quality in faith.  Otherwise, destruction was inevitable.  The effort of qualitative strengthening brought them in the past to resist the passing vigor of the material, to deny the admiration of the real and ultimately to reveal the one and powerful and eternal God.  The Jewish people did not even have to link its fate with factors of time and place, nor with a national tongue; they could live without land and a common Hebrew language.

            Not being dependent on external, material life, the Jews gained eternal life.  According to Rosenzweig, the Jews are an eternal people because of their blood relationships and their association with God (eternity), since “only a community based on common blood feels the warrant of eternity warm in its veins even now” (Star 324).  Rosenzweig’s thought is supported by Genesis Rabba, chapter 14, section 1:  “Life (nefesh) – this is blood, as it is said ‘for the blood is the life.’” (Deut. 12:23).  Since the soul (nefesh) is eternal, and the soul [life (nefesh)] is blood, the concept of eternal blood can be understood.  His belief that the Jews are an eternal people in part three (Star 323-356) suggests that those who considered Star of Redemption a Jewish book are correct, and that all the ideas which precede the third part brought him to a perception that Judaism is ‘non-historic,” that is, it expresses Judaism’s eternity.  Yet, in order to reach the concept of “non-historic,” Rosenzweig must pass through history in time and place.  “Israel is the symbol of eternity that is within time” maintains Natan Rotenstreich in his summary of the thought of Rosenzweig (Jewish Philosophy 2:240).  And, one may add:  even within place in the world.  Other people take part in the past (creation) and the future (redemption) according to their spiritual character.  On the contrary, the Jewish people had suspended for itself the contradiction between creation and revelation.  The Jewish people lives in its own redemption.  It has anticipated eternity.  Jews are eternal since “every act of a Jew jumps immediately from the framework of time and becomes eternity” (Naharayim 68).  The Jewish people is “everlasting existence” (“Daseinsewigkeit”) (Naharayim 74).

            That the Jewish people were able to maintain their strength and survive in spite of the disintegration and expulsions attests to their perpetuity.  Rosenzweig believed (Naharayim 59-69) that their presence in the world indicated they are safeguarded by the father in heaven, for which reason Rosenzweig proclaimed the “we” to be eternal (Star 323).

            Rosenzweig quotes verses 17 and 18 of Ps. 115:  “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.  But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and for evermore.  Praise the Lord” (Star 280).  These verses reinforce the proof of the everlastingness of the individual and the community,  “Not the dead”—indeed not, “but we, we will praise God from this time forth and to eternity.”  This is what Hermann Cohen termed “the conquering But” – “But we are eternal” (Naharayim 152; compare Star 323).  Death plunges into the Nought in the face of this triumphal shout of eternity.  Life becomes immortal in redemption’s eternal hymn of praise.  Immortality comprises the significant contents of eternity, of which Rabbi A. Kook also spoke:  “The aspiration for the splendor of eternity conquers death and wipes away the tear from every face” (Orot HaKodesh 2:377).  But Rosenzweig emphasizes that life must first become wholly temporal… before it can become eternal.  The interpretation suggests that in order to attain “non-history,” in which Rosenzweig distinguishes the Jews, one must first pass the lengthy historic path and understand its process in time and place.  For that purpose, he chooses for himself the symbol of the “star of redemption,” which is the “star of David” with its six heads, which symbolize God, world and man on one side, and creation, revelation and redemption on the other.  According to Rosenzweig, these symbolize the historic process in time and place by their realization in time and place.  They are not concepts or forms of pure intellect but actual reality.  According to the historic process, God is made real in the world by man.  Revelation of God is not a one time manifestation, but a continuing process which does not cease in the innermost parts of man; it acts in him and drives him to bring redemption to mankind, and man gains God’s everlasting love in the proximity of the semblance of the “revelation” of the divinity.

            Immortality as the contents of eternity is, in effect, the fundamental condition which makes eternity the everlastingness of the present, a concept which will be discussed in the section on the conditions for the fulfillment of man’s purpose.  The framework of immortality is the kingdom, meaning that which eternally cometh.  This is the world that one sees.  If eternity is a future in which, without ceasing to be future, is nonetheless present, then eternity is a process of essential growth from the future to the present and from the present to the future.  Now the everlastingness of God means the being of becoming.  That is, with the conclusion of the movement of time created in the second part of The Star of Redemption, and after the whole of eternity itself grows in the personal time-experience between man and God, we turn to the perpetuity of God whose time-measure of this growth is not fixed.  Rosenzweig emphasizes that this growth is unrelated to time.  An existence which has once merged into the world cannot drop out again; it has entered the once and for all; it has become eternal (Star 254).  The factual content of eternity is “Tatsache” only.  The fact of growth assures that it will not return and recede to the Nought.

            At the end of part two in book three, Rosenzweig describes eternity as the content of the seeing of the light:  “It is that seeing of the light of which it is written:  ‘by thy light we see light’” (Star 281).  This light, according to Genesis Rabba (sec. 3) and Shmot Rabba (sec. 35), establishes a profound connection with creation and revelation within the concept of redemption:  “God said, ‘Let there be light’ (Gen. 1:3)—and what is the light of God?  It is the soul of man” (Star 148).  This is the light that the Almighty created the first day and stored for the righteous men who will come in the future.  And the Midrash said:  “… and for whom did He store it?  For the righteous men who shall come.  Compare the Midrash to a king who had a fine fortune and distributed it to his son.  Where was it stored?  In paradise.”³  For only in this manner did our forefathers describe the contentment of life in the next world, which is not comparable to the peaceful rest the individual soul finds every moment anew in the eyes of God.

            According to Rosenzweig, in the course of anticipating the future to the present (Star 257), it is possible to say “this is the day [of redemption]” that “the pious sitm with crowns on their heads, and behold the radiance of the manifest deity” (Star 281).  In the light of this eternity, Rosenzweig seeks to light the world and its redemption.  It is the assurance of the perpetuity of the revelation of God and emergence of the soul from its seclusion to “the eyes of everything that lives” (Rinat Yisrael 268).

The purpose of obliged necessity

            Eternalization of love becomes complete when it reaches out to the world, to the people with whom love meets.  The eternal nature of love is beyond the words, “You are mine” that is spoken to it—it draws a protective circle about its steps” (Star 215), and exists beyond the knowledge that from now on “it need but stretch out its right hand in order to feel God’s right hand coming to meet it” (Star 215).  The call thunders:  “my God, my God” (Star 215), and the pronouncement “I am his, he is mine” do not assure at all the objective of eternity.  For “O that you were like a brother to me!” (Star 234) asks the soul, no longer directing the soul to the beloved lover.  For love remains between two people, but the I and Thou cannot grant the soul eternal love beyond its time and place, in a future beyond its present revelation. " “I” and “Thou” are linked to the most intimate, present time and do not burst forth to the eyes of everything living” (Rinat Yisrael 268).  The mutual love is not the love which expresses the “external fulfillment which love reaches out after from her internal blissfulness in a stupor of unquenchable longing…” (Star 234).  The love of the meeting already will not fulfill the impersonal communal life of the natural kinship community.  The soul will not aspire to the realm of brotherliness, the bond of supernatural community that is wholly personal in its experience, yet wholly worldly in its existence.

            True, the soul is now “opened, surrendered, trusting—but opened only in one single direction, surrendered only to a single One, trusting only in Him.  The soul has opened her eyes and ears, but only One figure meets her glance, only one voice reaches her ears” (Star 236).  The soul remains deaf and blind to whatever is not the One.  Rosenzweig emphasizes that God has become, as long as He appeared to be merely the creator, more amorphous than He had previously been in pagan religions and has, moreover, been in constant danger of slipping back into the night of a concealed God.  Just so the soul, too, as long as she is only the beloved soul, is now likewise still invisible and more amorphous than when it was the self.  The soul sees only God.  In every other direction she remains just as secluded as she was.  As the mere creator is forever in danger of slipping back into the concealed, so the mere bliss of the soul, immersed in God’s loving glance, is in danger of slipping back into seclusion.  The chorus turns in speech to Rosenzweig’s metaphor of “the-mute-as-marble-figure,” of man alone with his god prior to reaching out to his fellow man.

            Man’s being loved only by God and closed off to all the world is presented by Rosenzweig in the parable of Gyges’s ring,⁴ which injures the man who uses it, since he is detached from everything connected to the world.  Man is closed off to all the world and closes himself off.  His soul is opened only to God, but is closed off to all the world.

            Man’s fusion with God, attained while forgetting all else, disturbed Rosenzweig greatly.  He indicated his distaste for mysticism, stating:  “The mystic, however, is not a human being, barely half a one.  He is but the vessel of his ecstacies” (Star 239).  The one-sided openness would have made him a mystic, whose relationship to the world, which he forgets in favor of God, is “thoroughly immoral” (Star 238).  Love of the world, then, is not only a positive act of being more than moral but is also an obligatory act, without which man would be unable to realize his essence and this return to seclusion.

            Winston S. Churchill expressed the obligation of “growth” for the world as an urgent responsibility and saw in it, in the words of Rosenzweig, redemption of the world:  “Without parallel growth of … peace and love, science itself is likely to destroy all that which turns life into the exalted … there has not yet been a period which requires that the internal virtue of man be manifested more strongly and faithfully in daily life; there has not yet been a period in which the hope for eternal life … was more necessary for the security of mankind.”⁵

            Winston Churchill was not an existential philosopher, but his existentialist thought expressed Rosenzweig’s state of mind when he expressed the mercy of love for the world which would bring redemption of the world from calamity.  Though love is the value which the individual attained in revelation, it cannot be found outside the framework of the I and Thou, and the danger of becoming lost awaits it.  Therefore, in order to become eternal man is obligated to burst out of the "I and Thou to help his beloved” and to turn to the world, to everlastingness and to the future.  The hope for eternal life, which characterizes Rosenzweig’s conception and which the commander professes for those experiencing this need due to the existing reality of battlefield and slaughter, expresses the view of those holding true religious belief.

            The one answer to the question, “O that you were like a brother to me” (Star 234) is beyond God’s love.  It is realized in the love of man for his neighbor.  Loving the other person, and not the love of God, is the way to everlastingness, redemption of the world or establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Only in this way is man’s purpose realized in the world.  Love must be eternalized, for only this eternalization redeems the world.  Redemption begins revelation, which opens with human love, which is a creation of the exemplary individual being, that is, mortal being.  This being, unique and exemplary or mortal, is forever a partner.  The victory over death is buried in the very moment of death:  love is strong as death, but death, possible at any moment, turns redeeming love into the possible.  Loving thy neighbor is now more important than being loved by God, but this does not mean that “love thy God” (Deut. 6:5, 11:1) is nullified in favor of “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Lev. 19:18).  Rosenzweig emphasizes that one must complement the love of God with the love of man.

            In summary, in being a lover, man is freed from confinement within his singularity and solitariness, and the condition created by I and Thou.  He senses new feelings of association and brotherhood.  In addition, he feels his ability to create love by being a lover, and not merely the feelings of dependence of the beloved, who is helpless and secluded.  Man is fulfilled only when he knows how to free his self from the relationship between man and God and enter the world, where he gives his love to the world.  Thus, loving God must be completed by loving one’s neighbor.

The fundamental condition of the purpose of man

            Rosenzweig thinks that the basic condition necessary to realizing eternal love of man is found initially in the love of God:  “… man can express himself in the act of love only after he has first become a soul awakened by God.  It is only in being loved by God that the soul can make of its act of love more than a mere act, can make of it, that is, the fulfillment of a commandment to love” (Star 244).  In other words, before loving your friend, you are obligated to love God.  In Rosenzweig’s thought, love for fellow man is an answer, and therefore there is a fundamental difference between love of God and love of man.  God loves since love expresses him and his power, it is an attribute, or, more precisely, a “happening” belonging to his essence; man loves because God loves him.  There is early and late, cause and effect, God’s love of the lover and the lover’s love of the beloved, and in respect of man the emphasis is on response, on reaction (compare Rotenstreich, Jewish Philosophy 2:223-224).  You can give your neighbor only what you possess.  You cannot give him something you have not learned or which is not within your experience.  Since love is not real, one does not lose it when it is given:  “… ever young love, ever first love…” (Star 193) “… it wants to be stable” (Star 196).  One can give all one’s love to a hundred persons and still possess the same amount of love with which one began.  Love is like knowledge.  A learned man can teach everything he knows, but when he finishes, he still knows everything he has taught.  But, first, he must be knowledgeable.  “Ere man can turn himself over to God’s will, God must first have turned to man” (Star 245).

            God’s love means pure interest in man’s soul to the extent of “the soul never ceasing to be loved” (Star 202), caring, concern and respect.  The concern for the soul is the principal element of love, so much so that “God gives himself to the soul” (Star 202).  Man loves God when he sees himself with precision, evaluates truly what he sees, and is particularly excited and feels a challenge when he thinks of what can be done in “walking before God” (Star 239).  There are shared elements which influence development of the personality:  inheritance, environment, opportunity.  But surely there is another element, which has not yet been identified scientifically, which Rosenzweig calls “something which is not encompassed in the concept of truth” (Naharayim 208), a merging of the special forces acting on the individual and causing him to feel, react and absorb according to some thing, and only it.  Man is individual and special, but most of what he learns from the day of his birth onward does not give him the freedom to disclose his individuality and develop it in his meeting with God and love.

            Man must associate with the world and with mankind, which act as agents through which man manifests and commingles with in the uniqueness of his acquired love, for “the love of God must be manifested in loving thy neighbor” (Star 244).  The individual greatly needs new and fresh approaches in community; without this mutuality, he will lose what he acquired, for “the mere bliss of love is in danger of slipping back into the secluded” (Star 237).

            Loving God prepares the foundation to receive the commandment of love thy neighbor, a commandment which awakens anew the spiritual uniqueness and fulfills it:  “Only the soul beloved of God can receive the commandment to love its neighbor and fulfill that command” (Star 245).  Since the content of the present ordinance is to love, God’s “ordaining what he will” must be preceded by God’s “already having done” what he ordains.  The meaning of this is to understand and assess the idea that one is the unique and special “Thou” created “in the image” in this world.  The commandment can also be interpreted to mean that one is not absolutely aware of all the silent marvels within oneself, for there is “something which is not encompassed in the concept of truth” (Naharayim 208).  Thus, when one dies, one’s wondrous possibilities will expire with one, for “not the dead” – indeed not, “but we, we will praise God from this time forth and to eternity” (Naharayim 280).  There exists in “Thou” a potential which should emerge in action and “in the presence of all the world” (Star 234).  Goethe, whom Rosenzweig frequently quotes in Star and in articles in Naharayim, brought Faust to disclose this by saying:  “Had I found a moment of rest on earth, for then this moment I said:  be kind with thy bounty and linger a while” (p. 223).  As Rosenzweig explains in Star, page 254, if Faust ceases his searches for the tiniest moment, he brings on Satan, for there is not a moment of rest in the struggle of man for his becoming, there is a process of essential growth which is always yet to come.  Chasing the “irrational” (Naharayim 207) must be the greatest challenge standing before man:  the search for himself, his personal odyssey:  to locate his space and arrange it.

            The love of God, and only it, then, includes, the true disclosure of man’s purpose, not only in the present but in the possibilities embodied in the future.  The love of God is linked to the ever present consciousness that one is unique, created in God’s image.  Only you, Rosenzweig maintains, can be the final judge of what is good for you, and only you will exploit your perfection in the world:  “Only he would be a real, a full human being… one devoted to God and turned to the world” (Star 239).  This is the religious experience which compels man not only to God but also to the world.  Loving God means knowing that your significance is eternal; with this knowledge, man can love his neighbor.  A. Altmann writes:  “only by means of revelation does the eternal penetrate time, realize and redeem it” (“Franz Rosenzweig on History”).  “…In the likeness of God he made him”⁶ and, explains H’Admar Rabbi Lev MeGur, Bal Sefat Emeth:  (Portion Kedoshim):  “He who loves his fellow man, who is made in the image of God, he loves God and honors him.”  This is the love of man which comes via adherence to God.  He who denies himself vis-à-vis God will feel that denigration also vis-à-vis his fellow man, for God created him in His image.  Rosenzweig states that “since love cannot be commanded except by the lover himself, therefore the love for man, in being commanded by God, is directly derived from the love for God” (Star 244).  To Rabbi Akiva’s explanation of the verse “love thy neighbor as thyself,” Rabbi Tanhuma added the idea that because he is “your neighbor,” he is “like you”; but because of the denial of God also the duties of love increase much more, for your neighbor is similar to the form of his possessor to the extent that he will enthrone us on himself” (Gabbai, sec. 12).  If you know God’s appeal to your spiritual uniqueness, if you accept and value it, you will enable others to benefit from this individuality.  In Rosenzweig’s words, “loving thy neighbor is decreed from the love for God” (Star 144).  If your form is free to disclose who you are, in the experience of the meeting, you will grant also to others the freedom to do this same thing towards you.  Thus, everything begins with you, or, more precisely, between I and Thou, between the I and the soul loved by God.  All the power of the everlastingness of love in the world is nourished by mercy, the love that is concentrated in the soul of man and that becomes the hope for redemption of the world.  In his note to the poems of Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, Rosenzweig states:  “you improved your mercy while you were waiting for your redemption” (Sechzig Hymnen 102).  If you will know your soul as “being loved by God” (Star 244), you can give of yourself to others.  When you will love God, you will love others.  Only in the same depth and dimension that you love God will you find yourself able to love your fellow man:  “Only the soul beloved of God can receive the commandment to love its neighbor and fulfill it” (Star 245).

            Because love is man’s possession, he is no longer subject to the mercy of a God stronger than he, for “love after all always remains between two people” (Star 234), and man, himself, becomes a powerful force in the world arena.  This is the great purpose to which one endeavors, such is man.  Love of man, which comes as a response and reaction to God’s love for man, is the primary goal which the star of redemption places before us, a goal which hopefully has the power to bring the world’s redemption:  “Besides man and the world, there is but One who is third; only One can become their deliverer” (Star 257).  It is the redemption of the world that Rosenzweig emphasizes since it is not necessary that Judaism be delivered as it already attained the future in the present.  Judaism already reached the objective, and it has no further need to develop.  “We do not become old since we were never young – we are eternal” (Naharayim 68).  See also Star, p. 323:  “There is only one community in the world… which cannot utter the ‘we’ of its unity without hearing deep within a voice that adds:  ‘are eternal.’”  But the world has not yet reached the objective.  Christianity is still on the way.  From revelation, “love thy God” man awakens to act in the world, to mend the world in the kingdom of God, attain “loving thy neighbor” and bring the entire creation to redemption, resuscitating all nature with love:  “… all the world within which it deals, is growing life” (Star 269).

Summary

The higher purpose of man, according to Franz Rosenzweig and like-minded philosophers of Jewish thought, is to love his fellow man, and, through doing so, to engage in tikkun olam, repairing the world.  Before man can love others, however, he must first love God, responding to God’s love for him.  It is not sufficient for man to focus on his love for God because this leads to isolation and disengagement from the world, something that Rosenzweig considers immoral.  For God and Judaism need no development or improvement; only the affairs of this world do.  The soul reveals its everlasting nature through the act of selfless love.

1. The Hebrew word "olam" (workd) means also "eternity," as, for example, in the expression "l`olam"(forever). See F. Rosenzweig, Secfhzig Hymanen 146: "Welt."
2. Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Nochmanides) Commentary on Lev. 23.29.
3. Gen. Rabba, section 3, from the Sefer Haggadah, edited by H. N. Bialik and H. Ravnitzki, 12.
4. The ring which turns the object to seeing and not being seen.
5. Churchill was a contemporary of Rosenzweig who,  in 1932, warned mankind of th coming danger of te abandonment of religion. Churchill, Thoughts and Adventures (2^nd edition, 1947) page 213.
6. Genesis Rabba, sec. 24.

List of Source Material Abbreviations

דף הבית

ON THE CONDITIONS TO FULFILL MAN`S PURPOSE

Part 2

Fullfilling God's ordinance to love thy neighbor is not singular act, but rather a long line of acts. The conditions fulfill the purpose are measured in fulfilling actions:

1. Expectation and disappointment

2. Loving thy neighbor

3. Prayer

4. Anticipation

1. Expectation and disappointment in the present

The word "expectation" is, for Rosenzweig, a synonym for "waiting" (Naharayin 231). He explains: "The thinker knows previously his logic; their expression in his mouth is nothing other than an essential yielding because of the defects in the means of our mutual understanding, as he calls it. But the defect is not because we require language, but because we require time. That is God is unable to make prior what is the later, we need to wait for the time to come, dependent on our fellow man in our path. "A description of the following  comparison between a person who waits and the person "who remembers" will demonstrate Rosenzweig's intention when he stated:…the waiting of the world is itself, after all, tantamount to the forcible eliciting of that act [of love]" (Star 257).

            There are persons who live waiting, expecting something which must come. They always wait, forever expecting. And there are persons who live always yearning for what was and is no longer. Memories comprise their entire life. According to Rosenzweig, the lives of such person who wait in the present no (in this moment, in this day, in this week, in this season) compulsively bring about the future, the world- the visible, love of the neighbor, coming to the eyes of everything that lives. They have meaning for them, for the waiting is the preamble to every act of love vis-à-vis the world and links the thought that sweetens the act of  man's love in the world. "Those who wait" understand and hope in the present for the coming future, "those who remember" do not hope in the present and deny any idea of waiting in favor of that which was. The former,, the, live in the present  with the potential of renewal of vision and real prediction; " we shall live the future only in waiting (Star 249). The latter live the present while not existing in it. This waiting "delivers the delivered kingdom in the action of man" (Star 257). One waiting for the world did not progress progressively into endlessness of the kingdom, rather it is  he who will cause the world to meet eternity that is within time, the present. It is he who will resurrect, the future for the "eyes of everything that lives" (Star 249). "Cast thy bread on the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days" (Ecc. 11:1). Man waits, expects, wants something, and thus he builds the strength to present fulfillment, in his present life. He does not raise lost memories, but waits for the vision of the prediction in "the eyes of everything that lives." (Rinat Yisrael 268) – to his eternal love towards his neighbor, to his being associated. He waits each and every moment, he comes to anticipate the future and leaves the distant the near and now. "Keep the munition, watch the way, make they loins strong, fortify thy power mightily," says the prophet (Nah. 2:2). Waiting delivers the kingdom, heralds the future, brings about man's action and renews the proximity to the world. For waiting strengthens the loins, the beloved's loins of love of time past and protects and preserves it forever, for : "only thus does the future become the time of eternity" (Star 256).

But he who remembers always, exisiting only in the past, is the man of detached creations, closed, fearful, doubtful, living on something that is no longer. He is non-present, and in respect of him, "all expectations are but vanity and the gates of hope are closed" (Agnon 122).

The one who waitis is the truly full human being , possessing the internal strength of waling before God, and wishing to be, himself, the "saint" (Star 239), to be present. He does not evade, but rather accepts the full responsibility of life of " first not tomorrow. He lives in the present. According to Rosenzweig, life in the present is life of returning to history:

Rather revelation remembers back to its pas, while at the same time remaining wholly of the present; it recognizes its past as part of a world passed by. But thereby it also provides its presentness with the status of something real in the world. For that which is grounded in a past is, in its presentness too, a visible reality, and not merely internal. (Star 215)

The days, the mourning and the evening , the weeks, the holidays, the seasons return. Even historical events such as Mont Sinai and the revelation of God to the Fathers, according to Rosenzweig, return in the private and the individual soul of the chosen man. The man who lives in the present in an act of waiting is the man who knows how to give meaning to life in the present, to life everyday, every Sabbath, every holiday, every season. The personality which has in it the sense of life of blessing, of fullness, "the external fulfillment to which love extends its hand…" (Star 234), of the force of anticipation which grasps the future, can attain such a level that each morning will be life the first morning, that each Sabbath will like the Sabbath of Creation, and each season will as it was the first time. Then, repetitition will not be wearisome and boring. Everything will repeat and yet be new ["Anew with every new day" (Star 196)], a visible reality. According to Rosenzweig, the present will be eternity and eternity will be present: "…this today, this everlastingness is not 'very long' time but rather 'even today'" (Star 263).

What is considered in the created world as a fixed and stable external fact becomes, as result of the power of waiting, and act of love that will occur in the future. If in "creation" identity is attained on the way from within to without, that is, from the experience of revelation to the description of reality as a state of revelation, in "redemption" this relationship is changed: the delivered world cannot be described—otherwise iti is nothing other than finished; rather, one may only anticipate it, waiti for its realization. "For the future is first and foremost a matter of anticipation, that is the end must be expected at any moment" (Star 256). We shall live the future only in expectation, but no only in this solitary act. The future is also realized with the force of ever-present disappointments, which are essential to their disappointments as the undertaking of redemption of the world. Otherwise, it would be frozen as an "organized, schematic deed" and would become past or "purpose" directed to the future without anticipation the present. The act of love must be entirely of the moment, spontaneous, not planned, finished and perpetual, and disappointment assists in preserving the authenticity of waiting as an act which bring, delivers and nourishes the future in the present in the deed of loving. Normally, when we hear the word "disappointment," we think of failure, retreat, despair, hopelessness; actually, dismay energizes expectation and preserves the strength of love. Disappointment prevents love from becoming a frozen, rigid and counterfeit act. It shows that love is not a planned act and it knocks all finished obedience from it. Disappointment nourishes love and transforms it into a faithful knocking of the soul in attaining the unknown—the eternity that is the apex of the Jewish religion.  

2. The act of loving thy neighbor

We already demonstrated in the section " The purpose of obliged necessity" that the soul of man must abandon the love of God in favor of the world, that is, the neighbor "for again the relationship I and Thou cannot grant the soul everlasting life beyond time and place to a future beyond its present revelation… I and Thou are linked to the most intimate and present time and do not burst forth 'in the eyes of everything that lives'" (Star 234). Now after all, man can express his being seen and heard. No longer is he a rigid marble stature like the tragic hero of antiquity- nay, he speaks" (Star 239). The soul abandons the love of God to "love thy neighbor as thyself." He must do this since he needs this force to complement the dedication demanded in the ordinance to love God. This complimentary force is realized in "waling before God." Man is complete man when he knows how to tear himself from the mystic experience and walk to God- to give his love, which he merited, to the world. Loving God is made complete by walking before God, that is, by loving his fellow man, for he is a creation of God; it is as if he walks before God, which compliments the walking in the past to God by loving him.

Prior to discussing the act itself, it is necessary to clarify first the concepts "neighbor" and "as thyself." Rosenzweig interprets "neighbor" as one who is near, the non-specific (Star 264, 265): "He is loved for his own sake, nor for this beautiful eyes, but standing there, because he happens to be nighest to me" (Star 248). "In the perception of the bliblical 'neighbor,' Rosenzweig follows the Septuagint and the translation dependent on it, which interperets it in the sense of 'proximate,' and understands this term literally" (Gutmann, HaPhilosophia, 345). Neighbor is not a definition of repose or strength or some other physical trait, but rather a definition of self. Precisely in the commandment to love one's neighbor, the self is definitely confirmed in its place" (Star 268). With regard to 'as thyself," Rosenzweig writes as follows:

…man is to love his neighbor like himself. Like himself. Your neighbor is 'like thee'… That is you- therefore stop distinguishing yourself from it, penetrate it, dissolve in it, lose yourself in it…. Out of the endless chaos of the world, one nighest thing, his neighbor, is placed before his sould, and concerning this one and well-nigh only concerning this one he is told: he is like you… but he is not to remain a He for you, and thus a mere It for your You. Rather he is like You, like your You, a You like You, and I- a soul.

If a man will increase his kindness towards this neighbor, he will find himself included within him, and he will love him "precisely like yourself, like yourself with no difference at all." "With no difference at all" is similar and identifiable with heart and emotion. Rosenzweig present the love of man as love of the passion for the beloved, and there is no passion here, since the longing derives from and returns to him." Precisely because of this, love of the "I" constitutes an example of the love for the neighbor, since love is the longing for unity, and there is no greater unity than "the I" – "but he himself," and if so, also love of man for his neighbor- with its development and deepening and increasing of the unity among them, as in the spirit of the Rosenzweig, "…a You like You, and I –a soul." In the words of the Maharal, "from the aspect that they [the man and his neighbor] are one." "All mankind are linked as one body. All are created in the image of 'God to complete the image and form of the highest which includes all the souls of mankind, all of them, for all are one head and one body composed of various organs ('evarim shonim"  in Hebrew)" (Malbin on the Torah Lev. 19:18). Rosenzweig uses similar  terminology: m'fulgey evarim"  or "evarim shonim" [articulation], that the head will love the hand like itself.

Rosenzweig alludes to mankind's universal unity in the world when he employs the term "like thyself." By the force of this soul self unity the power of the selfhood is embellished to the degree that the power elevates the divinity, reveals and redeems it. In the words of the Malbim of the Torah (Lev. 19:18): An individual entity which, in spite of its individuality strove for eternity, would have to take the All into itself: God, man, the world (Star 239-330). Redemption occurs when the "I" learns to say 'you" to the "he." Rosenzweig maintains (Star 268) that if one loves one near to one with all one's selfhood, one loves all mankind, whose selfhood is like his. That is, he loves the world. If one can say to another. I love through you the world, I love in you also myself!" For "You like You, and I—a sould" (Star 2668). "The neighbor is the other person, fellow-man…In the final analysis it goes out to everything in the world…" (Star 248). Loving each and every neighbor is like a rising for the counting—the eternity that will bring unity of all being as the final and highest development of reality and thought.

Love of the neighbor means occurance in the present every moment and forever: "his will is now destined to run in this direction which directs him once and for all…  I love… here this very moment" (Star 243). This is an event of sudden, renewed occurrence that does not result from an inborn personality trait (Starb 243-244)): "Love of the neighbor repeats and continually burst forth anew" (Star 245). The Rabbinical Sages considered renewal important. "The times are incalculable; neither man nor world knows them" (Star 270). Occurrence is the direction towards the dynamic content of love based on will for freedom of man blended with the compelling power of the act of love, which is essentially the source of the character that is not "personality" from birth but rather something which 'suddenly overcame a man" (Star 243-244) and plots for him "direction" to run as he will, and which gives him direction for the goal—man is "corrected (judged)," his directions is fixed once and for all. "With five names we can call it (the could of life): soul, spirit, life unit, creature. Spirit—for its rises and descends, as it is said: "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upsward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" (Eccl. 3:21). Spirit is occurrence and, in Rosenzweig's terminology, "running toward…" in other words, the occurrence, the running toward, is the animation since he is "a You like You, and I—a soul' (Star 268).

The concept of “running toward” is understood within the context of the soul, and its occurring content is the animation of the soul, the vigorousness of love which merits in the beginning to be “chosen” in his meeting with God. “Only” the power of the animation of loving thy neighbor, and not life itself, is the condition of eternal life of the soul. Only the dynamic growth, the process of “coming.” Having no relationship to time at all, makes the life of the soul eternal. The activity of the soul in the bountifulness of love is an act of dynamic growth, “rising and descending” as in the words of the Midrash. This dynamic love gives the soul directions in its attempt to gain victory of life over death. “Life offers resistance; it resists, that is, death” (Star 252). The fact that every moment might be the last makes it an eternal moment; overcoming death is buried in the essence of the moment of death. Love is strong as death, but at the same time death, possible at every moment which has no retreat, pure future. Redemption complements the day of God. The redeemed world will be living, animated, and more than that, all divine. Love grows in its vitality and nourishes the world, and the world is made more and more vital, more and more animated. This process is the act of love of man in the world, “vivification of existence” (Star 254), something additional imposed on life, something that will assure it immortality. Life is assured (Bürge) of citizenship in the kingdom—“the world which eternally cometh” (Star 254). Direction not only notes internal growth of life whose everlastingness is not certain, but marks an act of immortality. This is similar to that which is said in Ps. 17:15: “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” This is what loving thy neighbor gives and what life cannot grant: “animation, eternity” (Star 269). “The soul demands, as objects animated with soul by it, an articulated life. It then exercises its freedom on this life, animating it in all its individual members, and everywhere inseminating this ground of the living structure with the seeds of name, of animated individuality, of immortality” (Star 269).

            In his thought about the direction of the soul towards conquering eternity, Rosenzweig resembles Sartre, who also saw man as aspiring to break out of his happenstance existence and temporariness. As one aspiring to vanquish eternity, man seeks to go beyond the borders of time (Being and Nothingness 134).

            Loving thy neighbor grants something additional to life: “To fulfill life entirely” (Star 253). The example Rosenzweig supplies is matrimony. Marriage is a legal and natural relationship likely to be converted by additional life, by animation, to living full of soul. Redemption of the world does this. Love, which comes to man from above, and which is continued as if it were an additional pipeline to the world, strengthens and reinforces within the community  the forces of the direct link of the I-Thou. The plain anonymous It becomes the direct You. Rosenzweig sees a process in which man increases and fortifies the vital forces in the whole world, and adds life and vitality to the world. Man’s relationships are made more and more the relationships of love and kindliness, and this process, in which nature is made more and more full of life, is how Rosenzweig understands the direction of redemption of the world by man. In realizing this direction, complete man stabilizes or is “saint” (Star 239). Perfect man is the one who walks before God; he is dedicated to God and directed toward the world with the intention of being seen and heard directly by the other, which movement derives from “the experience of the soul and by soulful act. Therefore, he assumes a configuration which, to anticipate, is that of the saint” (Star 239). Love of the neighbor is walking to everlastingness, redemption of the world or preparing the kingdoms of heaven. This is the “I” as subject only. Zeev Levy teaches us that the common denominator between Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hermann Cohen, Rosenzweig, Buber Heidegger, Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Sartre and many other is that, notwithstanding the differences between them, at the center of their thought is the relationship between real man and the world, the world being perceived in the sense of fellow man, the rest of mankind, with whom he must conduct communal life. Whether or not any of these is a believer, each maintains the aspiration to nullify man’s experience as object. They aspire to see man as subject alone, determining his own fate, capable of developing his creative talents and expressing the totality of his human existence.

            Man as subject is the great purpose towards which one must act. Love of man, which comes as response and reaction to God’s love for man, is the absolute purpose; one must act to realize the complete human nature of man, to design it anew,, in order that man will be man in the full meaning of the word, in his full human stature. This is the meaning of the idea of redemption in Rosenzweig’s philosophy.

            Complete man is bestowed with power, life containing purpose of action because of his self-awareness, and consciousness of his fellow man, his past and the possibilities embodied in the future. The concept of “walking with god” means that one should not sit with hands clasped and wait for redemption, but must act for the purpose, for the future is already now. By his act, man anticipates the future in the present. This act is “the force of love, which is aroused in the heart of man beloved of God and bursts forth in abundance to the world… Marriage is an example in which love given great value… After the awakening of love the natural association can be fused with partnership-love and being made total unity, and bring about the greatest height of possible closeness between men… Redemption of the world is interpreted as slow but steady growth of these forces, a sort of continually increasing spreading of the influence of love on institutions of human life” (Gutmann, HaPhilosophia 346). The deed which results from the purpose of man in the externalization of his love is redemption of the whole word, what Rosenzweig terms a “redemption of the objects by means of the soul” (Star 258): “It anticipates all the world” (Star 257). It is a situation in which all nature, the entire present, all sing songs of praise to God together in the chorus. “…seas and rivers and all the heathen and God-fearing ones: Praise ye the Lord!” (Star 261) or making the world “animated” (Star 268). This lofty idea that redemption of the world is accomplished through the act of the soul, is truly one of the wonders of the human spirit. “Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 86:11). Love is not restricted to mankind, but is found in all of nature: “… the world, all the world with which it deals, is growing life” (Star 269). All relationships of the world of creation become a relationship of love, and mere relationship disappears totally. According to Hermann Cohen, the moral relationship between man and his neighbor is a stage of preparation to the relationship between man and God. Rosenzweig maintains that the relationship between man and God is primary, and the relationship between man and his fellow man results therefrom (Dat H’Tvuna 168, 170).

3. The act of prayer

            “Thus the chant of all is here joined by a stanza sung by but two individual voices- mine and that of my neighbor’s… Where the dual has once applied, where someone or something has become neighbor to a soul, there a piece of world has become something which it was not previously: soul” (Star 264). The Sages state: “The entered to pray, one started to pray without waiting for the other and then left, thus causing his prayer to be unacceptable, as it is said: “he teareth himself (nagsho in Hebrew) in his anger. Shall the earth be forsaken for thee?” (Job 18:4). Rashi comments that the explanation of prayer is hinted at in the language “nefesh” [soul]: What is the soul? Prayer, as it is said, “I shall pour my soul (nefesh) before God.” The essence of the soul is prayer. “The soul is made close to him,” maintains Rosenzweig. Every aspiration is in any event prayer. For that is the characteristic of man, whose strong aspiration is expressed within his heart and also on his lips—in prayer. Rosenzweig also thinks that in the communal chant (prayer) a soul is made for you by means of joining of two souls, for the soul is eternal, the testimony of what “we (in our souls) will praise God from this time forth and to eternity.” Rosenzweig continues: “but we… the eternal… the We are eternal; death plunges into the Nought in the face of this triumphal shout of eternity (in prayer). Life becomes immortal in redemption’s eternal hymn of praise” (Star 280).

            In the act of communal prayer, proper prayer, it is possible to bring eternity to time or, as Rosenzweig states (Star 261), to shift the reality of redemption to eternity, to feel the coming of the kingdom in “desirable time” (Star 300) and “time of Grace” (Star 300). Prayer must be realized through the believer’s wisdom. The desired time must be accompanied by the “We” (Star 266), and this communal prayer can be representative of eternity. In prayer one feels and influences eternity, whose objective is to come “today” (Star 364) to redeem the soul: “The redemption of the soul occurs in one breath, in the duet of both…” (Star 258). The praying soul thanks God and calls also all the world: “… seas and rivers and all the heathen and God-fearing ones: Praise ye the Lord!” (Star 261). “Sing to God, all ye lands… make a joyful noise unto the Lord; for he is good; for his mercy endurenth forever…” (Ps. 137:1 and 100:1; 1 Chron. 16). Praise and thanksgiving are the voice of the soul that is redeemed and redeems the world through mutual unity of the soul and the world.

            The “We” encompasses everything it can grasp and reach within its vision. But what it can no longer reach nor see it must eject from its bright, melodious circle into the Nought for the sake of its unity, calling it: You, being thus counted among those praying. Rosenzweig’s conception of the dichotomy between “We” and “You” is supported by the rule which states that a ger [convert] who prays in a synagogue says “the God of your fathers” (Mishnah Bikurim, ch. 1, sec. 4). Another example is found in the prayer said at the cemetery; “Blessed is He who know your numbers [all of you], He will come to judge you, He will raise you up, blessed be the faithful in His resurrecting of the dead” (Tosefta Berachot, ch. 7, sec. 9). The use of the language “you” carries with it an expression of lack of identification with that community to which the one praying relates his words. In the Haggadah of Passover, also, the above Midrash is supported. The language “to you” is required in the mouth of the “evil son” –to you and not to him…who removed himself from the group.” The We among you is explained to be the you,” according to Rosenzweig. One understands, then, the absence of stylistic print of “you” in all the remaining prayers in order to emphasize the total identification of the one praying with “We,” with the community. The only exception is the formula “You will bless the Lord (the one blessing)”; but the use of this formula is restricted to the beginning of the prayer in public (and also the reading of the Torah in public) to a time when the reader calls those present to join in prayer. Even the use of that formula in the blessing of calling the men to prayer is rejected by Shmuel the Amora. “Man will never remove himself from the group. That is, it is preferable to say “Let us bless” and not “You will bless”; and though the reader in the prayer says “you will bless,” it is interpreted in the Jerusalem Talmud: “Since the one blessing will say it, even he does not remove himself from the group, “but in the sources of the Tannaim there is no opinion which nullifies the use of “you will bless” in the blessing  calling the community to prayer. The “We” does not yet exist. In all of us, we separate from us the you. In opposition to the false security of you rises a secure We in God who ‘helps them and is their shield’. Israel is secure, it is the We Protected in his love as the eldest son of God, the heavens, even the heavens, are the Lord’s: but the earth hath he given to the children of me (Ps. 115:16; see Star 280), to man and not to the house of Israel, for there is no need that Judaism be redeemed since it has already attained the future in the present. Judaism already reached the objective, and it no longer needs to develop “We-the eternal” (Naharayim 68; Star 233). The community of those who pray constitutes a species of eternity within time. “For the Almighty exists within the community…” since God has already granted his love and revealed himself to the individual in the past. The Maharal bases his writing (“for the Almighty exists within the community”) on Hillel’s directive: “do not remove yourself from the community,” for the community and the whole are lasting and enduring. The whole is the entirety, which has the force of the whole. The community’s existence is entire. The Maharal’s comments are most helpful in understanding the emphasis Rosenzweig gives to the community in the concept of We.

4. The act of anticipating

            Rosenzweig conveys the form of the future (the kingdom that will come) to the present, so that redemption can be a portion of his life from the future that man sees and experience I the present. Loving thy neighbor is the means through which the future is formed.

            The concept of anticipation (prologue, fixing a relationship from the beginning, Vorwegnahme) comprises the foundation of the theory of redemption, whose active deed is the love of man. The concept contains fundamental conditions that dictate love as an eternal act necessary for redemption: “Wachsen wie Wirken Werden durch solche Vorwegnahme ewig [Both growth and act are made eternal by anticipation]” (Stern 290).

            The concept of anticipation contains fundamental conditions which are necessary in order to realize the act of love as an eternal event and to constitute redemption. The first condition is severance from the world. “Eternity is the future” (Star 254). Not yet realized in the world, eternity contains no historic category to help realize it. In eternity, time is irrelevant: “… the tempo of this growth is not fixed, nay more exactly: the growth had no relationship at all to time” (Star 254). The more we place eternity in opposition to life, which ends, the greater is the separation between them, for “we sought an Infinite, standing by itself, we found all kinds of finites, indefinitely numerous…. How can we resolve this contradiction?” (Star 252-253).

            In truth, the idea of redemption rest wholly on the future, that is, on the contradiction, on the paradox that the coming of the kingdom is essential, “an existence which had once merged into the kingdom cannot drop out again; it has entered the once-and-for-all, it has become eternal” (Star 254). However, “the inevitable growth of the kingdom is… nonetheless incalculable… And whether world and man find each other today or tomorrow or whenever—the times are incalculable; neither man nor world knows them” (Star 256). There must be a “sprouting of life” between the moment in which the soul is full of expectation of the future and coming of the future. For “the future it is, in short, decisive that it can and must anticipated” (Star 263; see also Star 249, 256, 253, 270).

            Another condition of anticipation is precisely the paradoxical aspect- communication in the world with the power of expectation for the side of the future, the side of eternity. Anticipation of eternity occurs every moment, and only by exiting from temporality, one attains timeless eternity. One anticipates infinite life and finds finite life, anticipates the kingdom of the world, compelled to be eternal, which, nevertheless, cannot be known. This future is the first and foremost anticipation; the end must be expected at every moment. “Only thus does the future become the time of eternity” (Star 256): “Erst dadurch wird sie zur Zeit der Ewigkeit” (Stern 288). The future is the coming world (Star 254), it is the world which has not yet been finished, which is in the process of becoming, that is perceived only through anticipation.

                        If one wanted to recount (like the past lying before us) the future as well, one would unavoidably be turning it into rigid past. That which is future demands to be predicted. The future is experienced solely in expectation. ‘The last’ must be here ‘the first in thought.’… The world is wholly self- revelation from the first, and yet it is still wholly of the broad daylight and withal mysterious in broad daylight- mysterious because it reveals itself before its essence exists. Thus it is every inch something which cometh – nay: it is a coming. It is that which is to come. It is the kingdom. (Star 249)

                                …the kingdom, the vivification of existence, comes from the beginning on, it is always a–coming… It is always already in existence and at the same time still to come… It is eternally coming. Eternity is not a very long time; it is a Tomorrow that could as well be Today. Eternity is a future which, without ceasing to be future, is nonetheless present. Eternity is a Today which is, however, conscious of being more than Today. (Star 254).

            According to Rosenzweig, the decisive element n the act of anticipation to realize everlastingness is the relationship between present and eternity. The significance of anticipation is “that every moment you must expect the end. Only thus does the future become the time of eternity” (Star 256). The life we live daily, living the present, at every moment can become eternal in the process of growth in content and vigor: “This anticipation, it is Today, this eternity…is not a very long time but rather ‘even today,’” a sort of “for his mercy endureth forever” (Star 263).

            The present returned what was taken in the creation of light by God: “The light which the Almighty created on the first day, man observes it from the end of the world to his end [of the world]” (Gen. Rabba, Chapter:3; Hagiga, Chapter:2; Shmot Rabba, Chapter:35). This return of one that is taken to the future, “of the coming, righteous men” ( is essential to the growth of the soul towards eternity, since without the anticipation the future is not future but only prior and momentary, not eternal, but dragged. The world ( Gen. Rabba, Chapter:3; ) is not finished; it becomes in the expectation of the coming of the future through anticipation. Rosenzweig explains:

                        Even if there is talk of ‘eternal’ progress- in truth it is but ‘interminable’ progress that is meant.  It is a progress which progresses permanently on its way, where every moment has the guaranteed assurance that its turn will yet come, where it can thus be as certain of its coming in to existence as a transpired moment of its already being-in-existence. Thus the real idea of progress resists nothing so strongly as the possibility that the ‘ideal goal’ could and should be reached, perhaps in the next moment… The future is no future without this anticipation and the inner compulsion for it, without this ‘wish to bring about the Messiah before his time’ and the temptation to ‘coerce the kingdom of God into being’; without these, it is only a past distended endlessly and projected forward. For without such anticipation, the moment is not eternal; it is something that drags itself everlastingly along the long, long trail of time. (Star 256)

Rosenzweig assumes a strong connection “between broadcasting the seed and ripening of the fruit” (Star 288). God sows the seed in eternity and in His eternity, both are as one, an allusion total redemption. Man and the world will be one with God—absolute redemption as distinguished from the redemption of the relative world of becoming.

The support for transition from the activity which is that of man to redemption is the apex; anticipation is the creation of an internal link between action in the present and the growth of the future. By the act, it is possible to make the future better in the present (Star 299-2308): “Both growth and act are made eternal by anticipation” (Stern 290). The act of love in its essence is directed to the whole world, to eternity, to “whoever be momentarily my neighbor” and “my neighbor represents all the world for me” (Star 265), and the world is that which eternally cometh, the directed act and objective whose goal is from then onwards engulfed in the future.

In the act of love, one anticipates the future in the present by creating a link between the present as the starting point and the future as desired end point. Just as revelation creates a link between past and present, the act of loving thy neighbor creates a link between present and future. The world, in tension between present and future through the force of anticipation, is not a closed and fixed world. The world, heading towards its objective aided by the act of love, is made eternal due to the anticipation because of the special connection: “Auch alles Wirken geht ja in die Zukunft, und der Nächste, den die Seele sucht, ist ihr immer bevor-stehend und wird nur in dem grade augenblicklich von ihr stenhenden vorweg-genomeen [All action, too, after all, head for the future, and the neighbor sought by the soul is always ‘ahead’ of her and is only anticipated in the one who just happens, momentarily, to be ahead of her]” (Stern 290).

We are able to relate to the objective not as to something given, but rather as something hoped for and expected. Love of the neighbor involves loving the world, and this in turn implies anticipating the future, eternity, the world that comes to eternity as an act of fulfillment. Once expects the act of fulfillment. Here is the thrust which is not mute, which does tread endlessly and thus put the neighbor beyond reach.

But this growth in every moment at an incalculable pace, and every moment must be prepared to assume the fullness of eternity. Accordingly the Ultimate is that which is expected with every next moment, while the Proximate is within reach at every moment, for it is but the locum tenens of the ultimate, the highest, the whole (Star 257).

“Und das Wachsen des Reichs in der Welt in der Welt, wenn es hoffend das Ended schon für den nächsten Augenblick vorwegnimmt—auf was wohl wartet es für diesen nächsten Augenblick, wenn nicht auf die Tat der Liebe? Dies Warten der Welt ist ja selbst ein Erzwingen jener Tat [And the dkingdom’s growth in the world, hopefully anticipating the end already at the next moment- what is it waiting for at this next moment if not for the act of love? This waiting of the world is itself, after all, tantamount to the forcible eliciting of that act]” (Stern 290).

“Das in Tat und Bewuβtsein ganz dem augenblicklich Nächsten zugewandte Wirken der Seele nimmt bei diesem Wirken doc him Wollen alle Welt vorweg [This world, for which we have hope, in engulfed beyond our reality, but is absorbed also in itself. With the act of the soul turned entirely, in deed and in consciousness, to that proximate to it at that moment, it anticipates through this act all the world]” (Stern 290). Anticipation assists the act of love of man in the world to realize its purpose, the eternal purpose, eternalizing, the Today walking toward the future with the power of the act of love.

Summary

On the Conditions to Fulfill Man's Purpose, Krouz takes the thoughts of Franz Rosenzweig regarding the ultimate purpose of man which is how to find and understand his relationship between himself and the world, and his perception of time, in order for love to occur; and when that happens, it will bring about his redemption in the present time. To achieve this, he gives us four set of conditions that man must fulfill. Firstly, there is the "expectation and disappointment," which is the man must learn to accept that there is virtue in waiting becomes when an event or action finally happens it would bring an exhilarating experience. At the same time, "disappointments" are also needed becomes with each instance, it can make us stronger, our love becomes stronger, our determination likewise will be for the better. Secondly, there is the importance of "loving thy neighbor." As Rosenzweig's explains, it is not possible for one to love or to love oneself if we don't love those who are different or close to us. It is not possible to "live the future" at this present time, if we don't show love. Thirdly, is the importance of "prayer."

 In prayer man can find himself, his love, and his "redemption" being in state of "eternity." Lastly, there is "anticipation." When man understands the sets of conditions that are there for him at the present time, he will see the "future" that is laid out for him. Having an understanding of these four important concepts will bring a more wholesome experience and understanding of man's relationship with the world.

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