Levinas and the Torah

Richard I. Sugarman

Description

The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906–95) was one of the most original Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century. This book interprets the Hebrew Bible through the lens of Levinas's religious philosophy. Richard I. Sugarman examines the Pentateuch using a phenomenological approach, drawing on both Levinas's philosophical and Jewish writings. Sugarman puts Levinas in conversation with biblical commentators both classical and modern, including Rashi, Maimonides, Sforno, Hirsch, and Soloveitchik. He particularly highlights Levinas's work on the Talmud and the Holocaust. Levinas's reading is situated against the background of a renewed understanding of such phenomena as covenant, promise, different modalities of time, and justice. The volume is organized to reflect the fifty-four portions of the Torah read during the Jewish liturgical year. A preface provides an overview of Levinas's life, approach, and place in contemporary Jewish thought. The reader emerges with a deeper understanding of both the Torah and the philosophy of a key Jewish thinker.
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note to the Reader
Key to Abbreviations of Works Cited by Levinas

Genesis: Bereishis

On Genesis
Facing Responsibility (Beresheis: In the Beginning)
The Love of Wisdom and the Wisdom of Love (Noach: Noah)
A New Paradigm for the Human Subject: The Other before the Self (Lech Lecha: Go Out of Yourself)
On Justice and Its Surplus (Vayeira: The Lord Appeared)
The Binding of Isaac: The Yours (Akedah: Binding)
The Death of the Other (Chayei Sarah: The Life of Sarah)
Generational Responsibility (Toldos: Generations)
Love and Work in Exile (Vayeitze: He Went Out)
Fear and Anguish (Vayishlach: He Sent)
Settling (Vayeshev: He Settled)
Dreams, Hermeneutics, and Action (Mikeitz: At the End Of)
Substitution and Solidarity (Vayigash: And He Approached)
Intimations of a Messianic Time (Vayechi: And He Lived)

Exodus: Shemos

On Exodus
Proper Names (Shemos: Names)
The Fourfold Promise (Va’eira: I Appeared)
Making Time (Bo: Go)
Taste and Meaning (Beshalach: Sent Out)
The Language of Revelation (Yisro: The Giving of the Torah)
Economic and Social Justice (Mishpatim: Laws for Which Reason Is Easily Adduced)
Feeding the Hungry (Terumah: Portion)
Daily Fidelity (Tetzaveh: Command)
The Trace (Ki Sisa: Take a Census)
After Fire (Vayakhel: Assembling)
Accountability (Pekudei: Reckonings of the Tabernacle)

Leviticus: Vayikra

On Leviticus
The Saying and the Said (Vayikra: To Call)
Speech in the Imperative Mode (Tzav: Command)
Questioning, Responding, and Answering (Shementi: Eighth)
The Skin of Others (Tazria: Skin Disease)
The Sincerity of the Saying (Metzora: The Afflicted)
The Paradox of Pardon: Teshuva and Time (Acharei Mos: After the Death)
Holiness (Kedoshim: The Laws of Holiness)
Time, Holiness, and Alterity (Emor: Say)
On Biblical Social Ecology (Behar: At the Mountain)
An Ethical Eschatology (Bechukoshai: Laws for Which Reasons Are Not Given)

Numbers: Bamidbar

On the Book of Numbers
On the Irreplaceability of the Human (Bamidbar: In the Wilderness)
Intimations of Peace (Nasso: Count)
The Itinerary: Redirection (Beha’ Aloscha: To Raise Up)
Permission for the Promised Land: Granted, Denied, Postponed (Shelach: Send)
Beyond Power Politics: Mutuality and the Asymmetry of Ethical Life (Korach)
The Mystery of Death: Transcendence and the Limits of Intelligibility (Chukkas: Laws That Are Supra-rational)
Prophetism: Inspiration and Prophecy (Balak)
Urgency: Devotion vs. Fanaticism (Pinchas)
Word and Deed (Mattos: Tribes)
Journeys and Refuge beyond Our Intentions (Massei: Journeys)

Deuteronomy: Devarim

On Deuteronomy
First Reiteration (Devarim: Words)
Prayer and Pedagogy (Va’Eschanan: Pleaded)
Santifying Everyday Life (Ekev: Hear)
Economic Justice (Re’eh: See)
On Righteousness and Responsibility (Shoftim: Judges)
Social Justice (Ki Seitzei: Go Out)
The “Pact” (Ki Savo: Enter)
Time and Covenant (Nitzavim: Standing)
Going Forward (Vayeilech: Went)
The Song of the Torah (Haazinu: Listen)
The Blessing (Vazos Haberachah: Blessing)

Epilogue
Appendix 1: Glossary of Talmudic and Biblical Terms
Appendix 2: Glossary of Some Key Philosophical Terms and Phrases Used by Levinas
Biblical Translations and Commentaries
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Philosophie de l'esprit
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie
• Theology
• Judaism

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 23 août 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781438475745
• Langue: English

Extrait

Levinas and the Torah
SUNY SERIES IN CONTEMPORARY JEWISH THOUGHT RICHARD A. COHEN, EDITOR
Levinas and the Torah
A Phenomenological Approach
RICHARD I. SUGARMAN
Cover image: Gustave Dore, Jacob Keeping Laban’s Flock (1866).
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2019 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sugarman, Richard Ira, author.
Title: Levinas and the Torah : a phenomenological approach / Richard I. Sugarman.
Description: Albany : State University of New York, [2019] | Series: Suny series in contemporary Jewish thought | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018043671 | ISBN 9781438475738 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438475745 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Pentateuch—Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Levinas, Emmanuel. | Jewish philosophy—20th century.
Classification: LCC BS1225.52 .S84 2019 | DDC 222/.106092—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018043671
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The knowledge of God comes to us like a commandment, like a Mitzvah. To know God is to know what must be done.
—Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom
My spiritual needs are the other person’s material needs.
—Attributed to Rabbi Israel Salanter
For the absolute hermeneutic of a verse, the entirety of the book is necessary! Now, in the entirety of the book there is always the priority of the other in relation to me. This is the Biblical contribution in its entirety.
—Emmanuel Levinas, Of God Who Comes to Mind
Our relation to time finds itself in crisis. It seems indispensable that we Westerners situate ourselves in the perspective of time bearing a promise.
—Emmanuel Levinas, Is It Righteous to Be

For Rabbi Rafoel Zalman Levine Ha Cohen (1900–1992)
Master Teacher, Talmud Chacham, Friend ZT’’L
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note to the Reader
Key to Abbreviations of Works Cited by Levinas
GENESIS: BEREISHIS
On Genesis
Facing Responsibility (Beresheis: In the Beginning)
The Love of Wisdom and the Wisdom of Love (Noach: Noah)
A New Paradigm for the Human Subject: The Other before the Self (Lech Lecha: Go Out of Yourself)
On Justice and Its Surplus (Vayeira: The Lord Appeared)
The Binding of Isaac: The Yours (Akedah: Binding)
The Death of the Other (Chayei Sarah: The Life of Sarah)
Generational Responsibility (Toldos: Generations)
Love and Work in Exile (Vayeitze: He Went Out)
Fear and Anguish (Vayishlach: He Sent)
Settling (Vayeshev: He Settled)
Dreams, Hermeneutics, and Action (Mikeitz: At the End Of)
Substitution and Solidarity (Vayigash: And He Approached)
Intimations of a Messianic Time (Vayechi: And He Lived)
EXODUS: SHEMOS
On Exodus
Proper Names (Shemos: Names)
The Fourfold Promise (Va’eira: I Appeared)
Making Time (Bo: Go)
Taste and Meaning (Beshalach: Sent Out)
The Language of Revelation (Yisro: The Giving of the Torah)
Economic and Social Justice (Mishpatim: Laws for Which Reason Is Easily Adduced)
Feeding the Hungry (Terumah: Portion)
Daily Fidelity (Tetzaveh: Command)
The Trace (Ki Sisa: Take a Census)
After Fire (Vayakhel: Assembling)
Accountability (Pekudei: Reckonings of the Tabernacle)
LEVITICUS: VAYIKRA
On Leviticus
The Saying and the Said (Vayikra: To Call)
Speech in the Imperative Mode (Tzav: Command)
Questioning, Responding, and Answering (Shementi: Eighth)
The Skin of Others (Tazria: Skin Disease)
The Sincerity of the Saying (Metzora: The Afflicted)
The Paradox of Pardon: Teshuva and Time (Acharei Mos: After the Death)
Holiness (Kedoshim: The Laws of Holiness)
Time, Holiness, and Alterity (Emor: Say)
On Biblical Social Ecology (Behar: At the Mountain)
An Ethical Eschatology (Bechukoshai: Laws for Which Reasons Are Not Given)
NUMBERS: BAMIDBAR
On the Book of Numbers
On the Irreplaceability of the Human (Bamidbar: In the Wilderness)
Intimations of Peace (Nasso: Count)
The Itinerary: Redirection (Beha’ Aloscha: To Raise Up)
Permission for the Promised Land: Granted, Denied, Postponed (Shelach: Send)
Beyond Power Politics: Mutuality and the Asymmetry of Ethical Life (Korach)
The Mystery of Death: Transcendence and the Limits of Intelligibility (Chukkas: Laws That Are Supra-rational)
Prophetism: Inspiration and Prophecy (Balak)
Urgency: Devotion vs. Fanaticism (Pinchas)
Word and Deed (Mattos: Tribes)
Journeys and Refuge beyond Our Intentions (Massei: Journeys)
DEUTERONOMY: DEVARIM
On Deuteronomy
First Reiteration (Devarim: Words)
Prayer and Pedagogy (Va’Eschanan: Pleaded)
Santifying Everyday Life (Ekev: Hear)
Economic Justice (Re’eh: See)
On Righteousness and Responsibility (Shoftim: Judges)
Social Justice (Ki Seitzei: Go Out)
The “Pact” (Ki Savo: Enter)
Time and Covenant (Nitzavim: Standing)
Going Forward (Vayeilech: Went)
The Song of the Torah (Haazinu: Listen)
The Blessing (Vazos Haberachah: Blessing)
Epilogue
Appendix 1: Glossary of Talmudic and Biblical Terms
Appendix 2: Glossary of Some Key Philosophical Terms and Phrases Used by Levinas
Biblical Translations and Commentaries
Works Cited
Index
Preface
ENCOUNTERING LEVINAS
My first encounter with the thought of Emmanuel Levinas occurred as a result of a paper that I had written for a graduate seminar at Yale in 1966 on Heidegger’s Being and Time. The course was taught by John Wild who served as my mentor in philosophy and phenomenology for the better part of eight years. My essay was on “The Death of the Self and the Death of the Other in Heidegger and Tolstoy.” Even though he appreciated my critique of Heidegger’s devaluing of the death of the other and thought that it was suggestive, he did not think that I had demonstrated my case. I had argued that because Heidegger did not take the death of the other with any kind of moral seriousness, it was more difficult for him to take the lives of others as ultimate as well. I concluded that this gap of being with others ( Mitsein ) was at the heart of Heidegger’s acquiescence to the Nazis and their murderous regime.
Later that year, Wild returned from a trip to Europe. I had not seen or spoken with him in some time. Still, as was so like him, he began with our last conversation and picked it up as though there had been no interval. He said, “There is a man in Paris who agrees with you about the death of the other in Heidegger. However, he proves it.” When I asked him who this person was, he said prophetically, “You do not know his name and most Americans do not. But by the end of the twentieth century, every philosopher will.” That person was Emmanuel Levinas.
In the spring of 1969, Wild’s last year of teaching at Yale, he proposed to teach a seminar on Levinas’s first major work, Totality and Infinity. The English edition, for which Wild had written an important and laudatory introduction, would not be available from Duquesne University Press until the semester was over. Wild changed the subject of the course to “A Phenomenology of the Other.” For a significant period of time he taught from a manuscript that I later learned he had begun to write on Totality and Infinity. Later still, I found this manuscript among Wild’s posthumous papers and edited the text with annotations and published it for the first time under the title “Speaking Philosophy,” in an issue of Phenomenological Inquiry, volume 24, October 2000.
Wild spent his last year teaching, in 1969–1970, at the University of Florida and, not unexpectedly, he taught Totality and Infinity to what he believed was a receptive group of students. Wild argued that Levinas represented an original and positive turn in continental philosophy. After Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, Wild found Levinas to be the first thinker to confront Heidegger’s fundamental ontology and to successfully challenge his notion that Being took precedence over the basic patterns and elements of the human life-world. By arguing that ethics was first philosophy and that the fundamental human task was responsibility for others, Levinas changed the trajectory of contemporary phenomenology. Wild was especially impressed with Levinas’s contesting of Heidegger’s notion that anxiety over one’s own death was the only authentic human mood. Therefore, Wild felt that the major criticisms of contemporary phenomenology were on their way to being successfully addressed by Levinas. Phenomenology did not imply ethical relativism, a sealed anthropocentrism, and above all, there was a generative character to life and philosophy that had escaped Heidegger’s vision. Nihilism was on its way to being overcome.
In the fall of 1973, while serving as a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, Levinas agreed to meet with me, undoubtedly because of my relationship with John Wild, who had passed away in October of 1972. Two colleagues, Helen Stephenson and Robert Anderson, came with me. Stephenson served at that time at the University of Vermont as an assistant to Professor Raul Hilberg, who inaugurated the academic study of the Holocaust in America. Robert Anderson was at the time an instructor in philosophy at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. Wild had already told me about Levinas’s very recognizable sense of humility. What he had not told me about was Levinas’s keen sense of humor and irony. He and Madame Levinas were very gracious in welcoming us to their apartment at Johns Hopkins where we spent most of the afte