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PREFACE
- State University of New York Press
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PREFACE In this study, I have endeavored to present Isaac Breuer's philosophy of Judaism. The eminent Israeli critic Baruch Kurzweil, in an important essay on Breuer, offered a kind of warning to those who would study him. Just slightly less forbidding than "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," it reads, "Only one who is enlightened by the rich sources from which his soul drew will attain to an understanding of his personality and work. But as for these, their portion is sealed beyond repair. Heaps of ruins cover the others." Kurzweil, in effect, consigns Breuer to a bygone world, a world that has been submerged in the Shoah and suspended by the founding of a democratic, secular State of Israel. On the one side, the impressive synthesis of Judaism and German high culture that Breuer achieved may be of no more than historical interest. On the other side, Breuer's hope for a theocracy, a "Torah State" in the land of Israel, came to an end in 1948, if not before. The intellectual difficulties of interpreting Breuer, coupled with the apparent impossibility of building upon his thought in a living fashion, have worked to discourage a serious study of his contribution. Yet all who have been engaged by him, sympathizers as well as harsh critics, have recognized intellectual and spiritual greatness in the man and his work. Among his critics, Gershom Scholem noted the lack of a critical analysis of Breuer and pointed out that such an estimation of that "able thinker" would be desirable. Professor Rivka Horwitz, who related this story, has herself called for and contributed to a philosophical presentation of Breuer's achievement. She noted that without the studies of Maurice Friedman and Nahum Glatzer, Breuer's contemporaries Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig might not have found an audience beyond their own milieu. vii PREFACE In this study, I have endeavored to present Isaac Breuer's philosophy of Judaism. The eminent Israeli critic Baruch Kurzweil, in an important essay on Breuer, offered a kind of warning to those who would study him. Just slightly less forbidding than "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," it reads, "Only one who is enlightened by the rich sources from which his soul drew will attain to an understanding of his personality and work. But as for these, their portion is sealed beyond repair. Heaps of ruins cover the others." Kurzweil, in effect, consigns Breuer to a bygone world, a world that has been submerged in the Shoah and suspended by the founding of a democratic, secular State of Israel. On the one side, the impressive synthesis of Judaism and German high culture that Breuer achieved may be of no more than historical interest. On the other side, Breuer's hope for a theocracy, a "Torah State" in the land of Israel, came to an end in 1948, if not before. The intellectual difficulties of interpreting Breuer, coupled with the apparent impossibility of building upon his thought in a living fashion, have worked to discourage a serious study of his contribution. Yet all who have been engaged by him, sympathizers as well as harsh critics, have recognized intellectual and spiritual greatness in the man and his work. Among his critics, Gershom Scholem noted the lack of a critical analysis of Breuer and pointed out that such an estimation of that "able thinker" would be desirable. Professor Rivka Horwitz, who related this story, has herself called for and contributed to a philosophical presentation of Breuer's achievement. She noted that without the studies of Maurice Friedman and Nahum Glatzer, Breuer's contemporaries Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig might not have found an audience beyond their own milieu. vii viii PREFACE I am unable to say whether Breuer's greatness equals that of his two noted contemporaries, for I am uncertain how such things are to be measured or indeed whether it falls to us rather than to history to do the measuring. I am able to say that Breuer's philosophical acumen, rigor, erudition, and comprehensiveness compare quite favorably with Buber's and with Rosenzweig's. I imagine, without hard evidence, that his learning in the sources of traditional Judaism, including Kabbalah, far exceeded theirs. I would argue that Breuer is a philosopher for the latter half of the twentieth century. In Jewish terms, he is a philosopher of the post-Enlightenment age, a philosopher of the dialectic of Enlightenment . He has realized the disillusioning restlessness of modern reason and...