Language:
English
Year of publication:
2023
Titel der Quelle:
Naharaim
Angaben zur Quelle:
17,1 (2023) 3-18
Keywords:
Strauss, Leo
;
Judaism Doctrines 20th century
;
History
;
Redemption Judaism
;
Martyrdom Judaism
;
History of doctrines
Abstract:
This article argues that Leo Strauss gives voice to a twentieth-century Jewish theology of the absence of redemption. Using the term “political theology” to characterize Strauss’s thought is unexpected. But this is only surprising because the reception of Strauss remains ensnared with that of Carl Schmitt. The first and last task of this article is to disentangle Strauss from Schmitt. In between the opening and closing frames of separating Strauss from Schmitt, the article fleshes out three points about the political theology of the absence of redemption, each of which brings Strauss into conversation with one of his German-Jewish contemporaries. These points and Strauss’s conversation partners are: 1. the rejection of Christian triumphalism: Franz Rosenzweig; 2. deferral and the possibility of justice: Gershom Scholem; and 3. martyrdom, morality and the seriousness of life: Fritz Baer. The conclusion considers three ways in which a Jewish political theology of the absence of redemption might begin to dislodge Schmitt’s hold on the category of “political theology.”
DOI:
10.1515/naha-2022-0014
URL:
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