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CREATION AND REVELATION For Breuer, the epistemological analysis and cntIque of human experience reveals that man is a citizen of two worlds. His divinely given birthright entitles him to live in a world of freedom, but his fate condemns him to endure the world of necessity. Philosophy , especially Kantian philosophy, calls attention to this human dilemma insofar as we understand ourselves, in philosophical reflection, to be both objects within the order of causality, and subjects, whose consciousness presupposes a transcendental freedom . In its attempt to solve the human dilemma on its own terms, philosophy embodies the struggle, hope, and failure of the human communities outside of the Torah community. Philosophy becomes isomorphic with the tragic human situation. Due to the foretaste of freedom found in his own epistemic experience, man is prompted to seek liberation from the world of necessity. Without Torah revelation, however, man is unable to pursue his search in a 73 CREATION AND REVELATION For Breuer, the epistemological analysis and cntlque of human experience reveals that man is a citizen of two worlds. His divinely given birthright entitles him to live in a world of freedom, but his fate condemns him to endure the world of necessity. Philosophy , especially Kantian philosophy, calls attention to this human dilemma insofar as we understand ourselves, in philosophical reflection, to be both objects within the order of causality, and subjects, whose consciousness presupposes a transcendental freedom . In its attempt to solve the human dilemma on its own terms, philosophy embodies the struggle, hope, and failure of the human communities outside of the Torah community. Philosophy becomes isomorphic with the tragic human situation. Due to the foretaste of freedom found in his own epistemic experience, man is prompted to seek liberation from the world of necessity. Without Torah revelation, however, man is unable to pursue his search in a 73 74 FROM KANT TO KABBALAH nomic way. Breuer's "Torah-less" man, like Paul's "first Adam," drives himself deeper into despair and failure by means of the very practices that he imagines will secure transcendence for him. Indeed , insofar as man's medium is society, state, and history-as we will see-he drives himself beyond despair into evil. For his unresolved ontic dilemma moves him to escape into social and political projects that render history a long and cruel rebellion against God, His law, and His people. Epistemological and anthropological analysis, then, does not lay the groundwork for revelation in any positive sense. The conditio humana, as displayed in these analyses, is a condition of privation of meaning. Revelation cannot be validated by recourse to epistemological facts. It is only the kind of being who needs and receives revelation that epistemology and anthropology indicate. This reluctance to ground revelation in epistemology gives Breuer's thought something of a postfoundational cast. Breuer stresses the inadequacy of philosophical discourse for affirming the reality of revelation, turning instead to the inherent logic of the discourse of the religious community in history. His reliance on Judah Halevi, with his subsequent stress on metaphysical community over reason, contributes to this postfoundational appearance. The resemblance ends, however, as Breuer moves beyond epistemological critique into metaphysical construction. Here he is very much a foundationalist. He contends that the epistemic, ontic situation of man has its roots in the metaphysical, ontological situation of the world as such. The dualistic character of human being reflects a dualism fundamental to extrahuman reality. The world presents itself to us as an order of necessity, as nature (Natur), which is occasionally punctured by transcendental traces of an order of freedom, creation (Schopfung). Breuer's idiosyncratic use of the term creation must immediately be noted. For him, as for Rosenzweig, creation is not primarily an event in time or, strictly speaking, an event productive of time-although it is minimally that-but a continual aspect of the world. Creation is the world viewed in freedom, from the perspective of God. Breuer uses the term creation to mean both an event in and an aspect of the world. Creation is, as for Rosenzweig, an ongoing dimension of the world process. Furthermore, creation, although a signifier of divine freedom, is inherently unstable, unfulfilled , and incomplete. Creation requires revelation in order to become stable. We have already seen something of this paradoxical treatment in Breuer's equation of the unfree world-in-itself with creation. Creation is the world in its givenness by God. The divine 74 FROM KANT TO KABBALAH nomic way. Breuer's "Torah...

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