Encountering the Jewish Future: with Wiesel, Buber, Heschel, Arendt, Levinas

Contents

vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Encountering the Holocaust Elie Wiesel 13 On First Hearing the Holocaust Named 13 Writing The Other Kingdom 18 The Question of God After 21 The Additional Covenant 28 Holocaust Martyrdom and the 1967 War 34 Holocaust Icon 43 Chapter 2 Encountering the Bible Martin Buber 53 Teaching as a Prophetic Encounter 58 The Prophetic Community 66 History as a Mysterious Approach to Closeness 78 Isaiah’s Arrow in the Quiver 83 Buber’s Intriguing Bible 87 Contents Contents฀฀฀•฀฀฀vii Chapter 3 Encountering God After Abraham Joshua Heschel 95 Bridging the Interfaith Divide 100 A Disturbing Nostalgia? 110 God of the Prophets 114 Rendezvous with Destiny 124 Praying with My Feet 135 Chapter 4 Encountering Jewish Politics Hannah Arendt 143 Judging Eichmann 147 The Hidden Tradition 157 Jewish Identity(s) 167 Bracketing Jewishness 183 Chapter 5 Encountering the Jewish Prophetic Emmanuel Levinas 195 The Passion of Passions 199 Ethics as the Optic of the Divine 211 Expiating Blasphemy in Advance 218 Asceticism and the Prophetic 225 Levinas’s Ambivalence 233 Epilogue: Encountering the Jewish Future 243 Someone Has Deceived You, My Dear Friend 246 Aaron Crossing the Empire Divide 252 Being Jewish in a Globalized World 257 Notes 267 Index 275 Richard Rubenstein (1924–) ...