Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence

Uncovers connections between modern Jewish philosophers and classical rabbinic thought, arguing for rethinking of Judaism, politics, and violence.

Daniel H. Weiss (Author)

9781009221658, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 April 2023

350 pages
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.6 cm, 0.67 kg

'With refreshingly careful treatment of Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Walter Benjamin, Weiss shows how their Jewish theopolitical thought is informed by rabbinic Judaism. Along the way he demonstrates that they have been poorly understood by their Christian and other mainstream critics, who in turn have subjected their thought to the terms of dominant discourses and imaginaries. Weiss thus walks the reader through a rich and inspiring landscape of these Jewish critical engagements with the structures of the modern state and its corresponding violence. Christian political theologians and others will find in Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence a badly needed window for understanding early Christian theopolitics, which, considered without such Jewish sensibilities, have been systematically domesticated to authorize and fuel the violence of the modern state. I expect that the book will be for others what it has been for me, a gift for the imagination of a messianic politics.' Tommy Givens, Fuller Theological Seminary

Is commitment to God compatible with modern citizenship? In this book, Daniel H. Weiss provides new readings of four modern Jewish philosophers – Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Walter Benjamin – in light of classical rabbinic accounts of God's sovereignty, divine and human violence, and the embodied human being as the image of God. He demonstrates how classical rabbinic literature is relevant to contemporary political and philosophical debates. Weiss brings to light striking political aspects of the writings of the modern Jewish philosophers, who have often been understood as non-political. In addition, he shows how the four modern thinkers are more radical and more shaped by Jewish tradition than has previously been thought. Taken as a whole, Weiss' book argues for a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between Judaism and politics, the history of Jewish thought, and the ethical and political dynamics of the broader Western philosophical tradition.

Introduction
1. Moses Mendelssohn and the rabbinic suspending of coercive punishment
2. Who can command violence, and who should obey? Mendelssohn on divine sovereignty and the limits of modern Jewish integration
3. Jewishness and the prophetic anarchism of Hermann Cohen
4. Franz Rosenzweig and the Jewish alternative to militarism
5. Walter Benjamin and the antinomianism of classical rabbinic Judaism
Conclusion: no other gods, no other masters.

Subject Areas: Judaism [HRJ], Philosophy of religion [HRAB], History of Western philosophy [HPC]