The European project is not over. The constitution has been rejected, but the EU is still an economic free-trade union and it should continue to exist like this. Do we want to go back to 19th century politics of nationalism and protection of economies. There was a time when Europe’s division was necessairy: the days of colonialism. However, in the post-colonial Era Europe should at least form an economic and military union.

The EU has been able to keep peace in Europe for the past 50-years, together with NATO. NATO was to keep the Russians out, the EU to keep the Germans in. I thing it succeeded well doing that.

Welcome back Hand, please stay!!!

Well if it read fluently it’s OK. 🙂 There are some sentences which are taken literally from a book or article and others which I have made myself. as long as there’s no huge contrast between the academic language and my own crappy pidgin english it’s ok 😀

QUESTION 2
Compare and contrast the following thinkers on the rationale and the purpuse of Jewish peoplehood in the modern era: Achad ha-Am, Martin Buber, Mordechai Kaplan and Samuel David Luzzatto? In what ways were these thinkers alike in their conceptions and in what ways were they different? How did their immediate context affect their distinct positions?

Used articles:

– Ahad Ha-am. In: The Zionist Idea, HERTZBERG, A., ed.
– KAPLAN, M. M., Questions Jews ask: Reconstructionist Answers.
– Martin Buber. In: Zionist Idea, HERTZBERG, A., ed.
– Martin Buber and Hermann Cohen : A debate on Zionism and Messianism.
– Mordecai M. Kaplan: The Reconstruction of Judaism.
– The Religion of Morality: Luzzatto. In: Jewish philosophy in Modern times
– Zionism. In: the Jew in de Modern World.

The Italian scholar Samuel Luzzatto believed there are two oppositional forces in the Western Culture. There’s Atticism, the world of the ancient Greeks, which offers us all the beauty, the arts, the intellect, in short the ‘rational world’. This world is opposed to the ‘emotional world’ of Judaism: the morality which springs from the heart and from selflessness and love of good (Luzzatto, 33). Luzzatto goes further, claiming that eventually Athens would destroy Jerusalem if we try to combine both (as did Maimonides or Zunz who launched the program of ‘Wissenschaft des Judentums’). The Torah is a book of morality and ethics, we should not try to understand it in a philosophical way, neither does the “cold” study of the Torah makes a person moral. Religion has a pragmatic use which is not to reveal truths but to serve the interests of morality. The Torah has a threefold task: the sentiment of pity, which is the root of ethics (1), the principle of reward and punishment – because man is incurably evil the Torah offers a system to aid morality – (2) and the election of Israel (3). Luzzatto is a strong supporter of moral action which springs from the heart, however, he opposed both the Utilitarians (who thought of a concept as “calculated morality”) and the Neo-Kantians (who believed ethics rested on imperatives). He proclaims the chosen-ness of the Jewish people, because the unique-ness of Israel makes it possible to act morally. When Luzzatto claims that “Israel should be isolated from the surrounding nations” he means Judaism should be preserved as a separate religion and peoplehood (the combination which makes it unique). He does not talk about the state of Israel as a political entity, as he lived prior to the Zionist movements, in the first part of the 19th century, when the Jewish community was still trying to integrate in the newly created nation-states.
Due to tensions and growing Anti-Semitism in Europe, the idea of returning to the land of Israel was created. Not only in Western-Europe (Dreyfus-affaire), but mainly in Eastern-Europe, after the murder on czar Alexander II and the pogroms following this event. In origin Zionism was a secular ideology, derived from the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightment. There were different forms of Zionism however: Zionism as an expression of Jewish Messianism (much luke Reform Judaism) opposed to the idea of a ‘Switzerland in the Middle-east’. Also, the notion of the Jew as a builder versus the Jew as a fighter. The philosophy behind the Kibutz and the IDF (the first armed Jews since the Macabees) grew out of each of these components. Not all of the Zionists supported the idea of ‘physically’ returning all Jews to Palestine (like Herzl). Apart from this political Zionism there’s also a more moderate version of cultural Zionism. Both Ahad-Ha-Am and Martin Buber belong to the latter group of Zionists. What unites all Zionist though is the rejection of Exile, the galut. (Zionism, 530).

Ahad Ha-Am saw Israel as the spiritual centre for all Jews in the world, where an elite group of leaders would ‘nourish’ the Diaspora. He took over many of Luzzatto’s positions: as an agnostic he affirmed the chosen-ness of the Jewish people and he also believed morality made Judaism unique in this world. At the same he was also heir to the Haskalah. He stressed on Judaism as a common cultural experience more than as a religion: “Literature responds to the demands of life, and life reacts to the guidance of literature.” (Ha-Am, 251). On the other hand, he also criticized the Haskalah: “Coming into Jewish life from outside, Haskalah found it easier to create an entirely new mold for its followers than to repair the defects of the Jewish mold while preserving its essential characteristics.” (Ha-Am, 255). Ha-Am saw continuity as essential for Judaism, hence one could not just deny the importance of the ghetto-experience which was a miracle without parallel in human history. (Ha-Am, 259).

To understand Martin Buber fully, we need to see him in dialogue with Herman Cohen, the last of the philosophers to define Judaism as a religion based purely on Reason. From now on, Jewish thinkers will try to come up with a formula in which Judaism is more than simply a religion of Reason. As a secular professor of Kantian Thought, he uses Kant’s “categorical imperative” to define the ethical concerns. The four other thinkers object to this representation of God merely as a notion to be understood as an idea which links ethics with nature. Cohen is also opposed to the Zionist idea of a Jewish nation-state in Palestine. “The ghetto mentality is not the ghost, but the true spirit of Judaism and of Jewish reality” (A debate on Zionism and Messianism, 573) he responds to Buber. Buber on the other hand believes the essence of Judaism is a dialogical relationship with God (Covenant). He claims that there could be no Jewish Religion without a Jewish Nation and no Nation without Religion. Unlike Cohen he did not think Zionism was opposed to the messianic idea. In fact, Israel would be a laboratory for the relationship between men and God. “We want Palestine not for the Jews. We want it for mankind, because we want it for the realization of Judaism.” (Debate between Cohen and Buber, 572). Bubber differed from both Ha-Am and Cohen, but neither can we consider him to be a political Zionist like Herzl. Instead of national egoism, the state of Israel had to be build upon Hebrew Humanism. “[…] Jewish nationalism which regards Israel as a nation like unto other nations and recognizes no task for Israel save that of preserving and asserting itself.” (BUBER, 459).

The last of our four thinkers, Mordecai Kaplan, is addressing more specifically to an American public of immigrant’s children. He was also a Cultural Zionist and there are some resemblances with Ha-Am. He also put more value into Judaism without a supernatural explanation and he found the concept of chosen-ness arrogant and irrational. Therefore, Anthropology had to replace divine Theology in order to fully understand Judaism. His idea of Reconstructionalist Judaism meant that the essence of religion is group emotion, and not the mission of Israel or the chosen-ness. Since God can not respond to prayer, ritual acts should be looked upon as folkways enhancing the life of the individual and the group. In a way, this resembles a bit like Rubenstein (post-Holocaust) who also considered the “group experience” more important than the divine religion. Therefore he made a program for the reconstruction of Judaism: The interpretation of Jewish traditions in terms of present day thought. (1) The fostering of the social solidarity of the Jewish people through the upbuilding of Palestine (2), and the establishment of Hehillahs and communal centers in the Diaspora (3). (Kaplan, 500). Note the difference with Ha-Am, who thought Israel should provide the Diaspora with help, while Kaplan, like Louis Brandeis thought the Diaspora, more specifically the North-American Jewish Community should assist the newly created state of Israel.

Ha-Am, Buber and Kaplan have one thing in common: they are all three Cultural Zionists. Especially Ha-Am found his inspiration for this unique model of Zionism with Luzzatto. Even though the state of Israel in 1947 was formed on the beliefs of Political Zionism (David Ben Gurion), these four thinkers as well have influenced the messianic idea of Zionism and it would be wrong to think of Zionism only as a right wing political ideology.

QUESTION 3
Construct a dialogue/conversation among the following thinkers on the meaning of God in modern Jewish religion: Leo Baeck, Mordechai Kaplan, Abraham Heschel and Richard Rubenstein. How and why do their positions converge and diverge? What particular Jewish experiences in the 20th century are relevant in shaping their respective beliefs?

Used articles:
– BAECK, L., Judaism and Christianity.
– HESCHEL, A., The insecurity of Freedom.
– KAPLAN, M., Questions Jews ask.
– RUBENSTEIN, R., After Auschwitz.

A short interview with each of the thinkers.

How do you look upon God?
BAECK : The biggest mistake of our time is to think of Religion and Rationale as one. I am a rabbi, not a philosopher. I believe, there’s no such thing as Judaism, which is nothing but Kantian philosophy or ethical culture, nor a Judaism in which the idea of God is merely a decorative embellishment or a crowning pinnacle. There’s a difference between philosophical reality and the religious reality of the common believer. In my concept God has to be immanent and transcendent at the same time. Only in Judaism, such a union is possible: Jewish piety lives in the paradox, in the polarity with all its tension and compactness.
KAPLAN : I don’t believe in this concept of God as a “creator ex nihilo”, a “dieu horlogé”. God is not a supernatural creature, he is the sum of all the constructive forces like unity and creativity in our world. In opposition to God, there are the destructive forces. Man, therefore, is responsible for his own actions.
HESCHEL : My view would be quite the opposite: the idea of G-d is beyond words. As the matter of fact, we can not even talk about G-d, we can only talk to him. G-d is ‘divine pathos’
KAPLAN : Talking to God is useless. God can’t hear our prayers. Still, praying itself is not useless, but I will explain later.
BAECK : I believe both of you forget one important element which makes Judaism different from the other world religions: the experience of both mystery and commandment. The reason why Paul left Judaism was because mystery became everything for him. Christianity is based upon dogma’s, which often make no sense. The boundary of Judaism is crossed by Paul at the point where mystery wanted to prevail without commandment, and faith without the law. However, you can’t abandon the other side too and this is your mistake: mystery is important too, and not just commandment. Mystery and commandment are not merely connected and interwoven but proclaim each other and give each other their distinctive essences.

How can the modern Jew get into dialogue with G-d?
KAPLAN : As I said, talking to God himself is pointless. God is not a creator, he’s ‘energy’. Praying has a function though, not within a theological context, but a sociological one. It is a creative process in which he Jewish people can express their solidarity among each other.
RUBENSTEIN : I agree with you here. Solidarity among the Jewish people in the Synagogue is more important.
HESCHEL : I must object. The basic Jewish problem of today is the disregard for Jewish thought, the disparagement of the spirit. The group, the community received all our attention, while the individual and his problems were ignored. It would be suicidal to reduce Judaism, as you try to do, to communalism, collectivism or nationalism. Jewish existence is a personal situation. God is in search of man! God must not be described as a human need. On the contrary, man must be understood as a need of God. Without Him all is vain: the state, civilization, the life of the individual and the society.

But if God loves Israel that much, how could he have allowed Auschwitz to happen?
KAPLAN : G-d is not responsible, men are independent creatures. The Holocaust is a case in which the total sum of destructive forces have outnumbered the constructive forces.
HESCHEL : The only way in which we can form a counterweight to this extreme form of evil is by obeying G-d’s commandments. Therefore, G-d needs to be transcendent and supernatural. The nazi’s were able to commit their evil act because they didn’t believe in a supernatural G-d with commandments, instead they thought god was among them, in an immanent naturalistic way “Gott mit uns.”. Nazi’s were atheists, they didn’t believe in the Christian concept of a supernatural God as well. Their sole god was the German Nation, the Aryan Race embodied by Hitler. This explains why, after Auschwitz, a supernatural G-d is more essential than ever before.
RUBENSTEIN : That doesn’t answer the original question. How could God have allowed this to happen? Among those six million Jews slaughtered, there must have been some who obeyed God’s commandment, so why did they still have to die? If God is supernatural and powerful and God loves Israel he would most certainly not have allowed Auschwitz to happen. (1) Now, we all know Auschwitz has happened. (2) There are only two options available. Either God doesn’t love Israel or God is not supernatural and powerful at all. (3) I would however prefer a non-powerful God above a God who doesn’t really care about Israel anyway. I couldn’t live with the idea of a God who’s nothing but a cynic observer.

To conclude, is there still a mission for Israel, after the Holocaust?
BAECK: Yes, the role of the Jewish community is to promote the commandment and mystery of Judaism. Ceremonial law can offer us a way to express our communal consciousness, within the State of Israel and the Diaspora.
KAPLAN: I agree with the communal consciousness, but Jewish rituals and Ceremonial Law are folkways that need to be constantly reinterpreted.
HESCHEL: Most certainly Israel has a mission. We can combine the mysticism of God with a commitment to social action.
RUBENSTEIN: The death camps of the Nazi’s spelled the end of my optimism concerning the human condition. Not only six million Jews, but God and the mission of Israel as well have died in Auschwitz. I agree with Kaplan that we should strengthen our communal consciousness within the synagogue, so that for the time being on this earth, we’ll at least have each other to rely on.
BAECK: Such a pessimist look upon religion doesn’t help the cause of the Jewish people. Nietzsche already said that God was dead, however, we’ve all witnessed the consequences of this German Romanticism and Nationalism in its most extremist form …

Sacha Baron Cohen was brillaint as Ali G, in the beginning but the gag ran it’s course and he is seldon seen on Uk tv these days.
He was poking fun at a subculture (mainly from around the towns of Swindon, Reading and Maidenhead)

Shame because I preferred his Borat character, the inept reporter from Kazakhstan.
Chavs though are taking over 😡

What makes Borat brilliant is that he’s always making fun of the Jews (go into a redneck pub and sing a song about the holocaust) while Sacha himself is Jewish.

LOL, we call them johnny’s, though that’s more of a 1980’s term. There are also “gabbers” which is way too yiddish 😀

Ali G rocks though