The day before this past Yom Kippur (oh, fine, literally minutes before this past Yom Kippur) I wrote a post on this blog mentioning some of the religious writing of the 18th century decidedly non-Jewish philosopher Immanuel Kant, and I noted that his outlook on sin and repentance is kind of depressing. In a nutshell, he thinks that humanity is always held to the standard of moral perfection, and every instance in which I fail to live up to that standard is a stain that will never be removed, short of my remaking myself into an entirely new person.
Then I attempted to offer the beginning of an alternative viewpoint using a few Talmudic passages and other classical religious Jewish texts. But I’m afraid the picture came out a bit fuzzy and inarticulate (more than usual, that is), and in grand Kantian fashion I despaired of ever being able to redeem myself short of looking for an entirely new life plan that didn’t involve pontificating about Jewish philosophy online. Then I had a long, energizing fight with some friends about Franz Rosenzweig, which got me thinking that by talking about one of his ideas I might get my previous point across better.
Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) remains as famous for his novel approach to Jewish philosophy and religion as he is for his fantastically unclear prose style in The Star of Redemption. Everything he writes is packed, and there’s no way I could try to reduce him to a few sentences—even if I did think that I had any sort of handle on his general philosophy, which I don’t. So instead I’ll just mention one interesting point.
In an essay on Jewish Law entitled “The Builders,” (addressed to his friend Martin Buber), Rosenzweig complains that German Orthodox Judaism has reduced the meaning of the religious commandments to merely “forbidden” things and “permitted” things. Such a simplistic dichotomy, he argues, cheapens the religious experience of performing commandments, which should flow naturally from the desire to express an authentic Jewish spirit. Put otherwise: I should be performing commandments because I feel driven to by my Judaism, not because some rabbi tells me I have to.
By saying this, Rosenzweig moves the conversation about commandments away from rigid conceptions of “Law.” Instead of asking “what must I do?” (which in other words is “what is the very least I can get away with?”), he asks “what can I do?”
Not only does this flout Kant’s view of Judaism as a bunch of stick-in-the-mud statutes that don’t make us better people, but it actually one-ups him. Because Rosenzweig’s Judaism is more autonomous by far than even Kant’s conception of morality, which is just another external set of rules, albeit one that makes a bit more sense to him.
Most importantly, by making Judaism a matter of performance rather than of scrupulousness, Rosenzweig opens the door for reward. Once people “can” perform a commandment they don’t have to perform, they can become “good” people, not just merely people who are less bad.
Long story short: Kant gets served, and the human soul can be redeemed after all. All in a day’s work for Franz Rosenzweig.
(Yedidya Schwartz normally blogs on Fridays, but was prevented this past Friday by extenuating circumstances.)
