Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life: Rosenzweig, Buber, Levinas, Wittgenstein

Introduction (Autobiographical)

Religions are communal and have long histories, but religion is also a personal matter or it is nothing. So I will explain how I came to write this book in personal terms. In my days as a graduate student at U.C.L.A., the teacher who most influenced me was Hans Reichenbach, and my interests, like his, were centered on scientific method, scientific epistemology, and philosophy of physics. After I received my Ph.D., my interests broadened somewhat , but my first few publications (outside of pure mathematical logic, a field in which I was also active), were devoted mainly to philosophy of science.1 So how do I come, fifty-five years later, to be writing about three religious philosophers (arguably, the greatest Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century) Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Emmanuel Levinas? Joining a “Minyan” The story goes back to 1975. By that time my philosophical interests had considerably broadened, but prior to that year Introduction (Autobiographical) they still did not include religion or Judaism. But 1975 was the year that the older of my two sons announced that he wanted to have a bar mitzvah! Although I had never belonged to a “minyan” (a Jewish congregation), during the period that I was active in opposing the Vietnam War, I had once given an Erev Shabbat talk (a Friday evening talk) at the Harvard Hillel Foundation about that war and my reasons for opposing it, and I had a very powerful and favorable impression of the rabbi who invited me to give it, and who participated in the discussion that followed. Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold was not only the director of the Harvard Hillel Foundation in those years, but was also the founder and spiritual adviser of one of the congregations that met for worship on the Jewish Sabbath. My memory is that there were three Hillel congregations in all, at that time (today there are more): an Orthodox congregation, a Reform congregation, and the one that Rabbi Gold had founded some decades previously, which called itself then and continues to call itself today simply “Worship and Study” (it uses the prayer book of the Conservative movement ). So when I had to find a place for my son to have his bar mitzvah, I found it natural to go and talk to Rabbi Gold about the possibility of Samuel having the ceremony in the Worship and Study congregation. We agreed that my wife and I would come to services with Samuel for a year, and that he would study with a Jewish student (a philosophy major whom I knew, as it happened) to prepare for the ceremony. Long before the year was over, the Jewish service and Jewish prayers had become an essential part of our lives, and Rabbi Gold continues to be our teacher and friend to this day. That an adult Jew starts attending services when one of his children has a bar- or bat mitzvah is not at all unusual . But I am also a philosopher. What did I—what could 2 Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life Introduction (Autobiographical) 3 I—make philosophically of the religious activities that I had undertaken to be a part of? “Davening” versus Transcendental Meditation Forgive a brief digression. Another part of the story is this: in those days many people were singing the praises of twenty minutes of something called Transcendental Meditation per day. Although I am sure that many of those people do find it very beneficial, something in me rebelled (perhaps unreasonably). I thought: well, in twenty minutes I can daven (say the traditional Jewish prayers). Why do I need to try something that comes from another religion ? So I started to daven every morning (or afternoon, if I didn’t find time in the morning), as I still do. I appreciate that what “davening” does to or in one’s soul must be very different from what Transcendental Meditation does; be that as it may, I found it to be a transformative activity, and it quickly became an indispensable part of the “religious activities” that I just referred to. The Tension between Philosophy and Religion in my Life But to return to the question, what did I make philosophically of the religious activities that I had undertaken to be a part of? The question has no final answer, because it is one I am still struggling with, and...