Franz Rosenzweig (December 25, 1886 – December 10, 1929) was an influential Jewish theologian and philosopher. is the 359th day of the year (360th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1886 (MDCCCLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 344th day of the year (345th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Jew (disambiguation). ...

Early life

Franz Rosenzweig was born in Kassel, Germany to a minimally observant Jewish family. His education was primarily secular, studying history and philosophy at the universities of Göttingen, Munich, and Freiburg. This article is about the city of Kassel in Hessen, Germany. ... Göttingen marketplace with old city hall, Gänseliesel fountain and pedestrian zone Göttingen ( ) is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany. ... For other uses, see Munich (disambiguation). ... This article refers to the city in Baden-Württemberg. ...

While researching his doctoral dissertation on the 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel--the still read work Hegel and the State--Rosenzweig reacted against Hegel's idealism and favored a philosophy which did not begin with an abstract notion of the human, and instead, was integrated with actual human existence. This philosophy has come to be known by several different names, including speech-thinking and existentialism. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (IPA: ) (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher and, with Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, one of the representatives of German idealism. ... This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedias quality standards. ... Existentialism is a philosophical movement which claims that individual human beings create the meanings of their own lives. ...

Rosenzweig, under the influence of his close friend Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy considered conversion to Christianity. Determining to embrace the faith as the early Christians did, he resolved to first live as an observant Jew before becoming Christian. Famously, after attending Yom Kippur services at a small Orthodox synagogue in Kassel Germany, he underwent a mystical experience. Although he never put pen to paper to explain what transpired, he never again entertained the object of converting to Christianity, deciding to remain a Jew. In 1913, he turned to Jewish philosophy. His letters to his friend, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, whom he had nearly followed into Christianity, have been published as Judaism Despite Christianity. He became a philosopher and student of Hermann Cohen, with whom he developed a close personal relation. Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888-1973) was a social philosopher, who taught at Dartmouth College from 1935 to 1957. ... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations · Other religions Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Luther Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Archbishop of Canterbury · Catholic Pope Coptic Pope · Ecumenical Patriarch Christianity Portal This box:      Christianity is... Yom Kippur (Hebrew:יוֹם כִּפּוּר ) is a Jewish holiday, known in English as the Day of Atonement. ... Year 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between serious study of philosophy and Jewish theology. ... Hermann Cohen by Karl Doerbecker Hermann Cohen (4 July 1842 - 4 April 1918) was a German-Jewish philosopher, one of the founders of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century (Jewish Virtual Library). ...

The Star of Redemption

Rozensweig's major work, Star of Redemption, is his new philosophy in which he portrays the relationships between God, humanity and world as they are connected by creation, revelation and redemption. In this work he is critical of all Western philosophy that seeks to efface the fear of death and replace human actual human existence with an ideal. Hegel's Idealist philosophy is the primary target of such attacks. Western philosophy is a modern claim that there is a line of related philosophical thinking, beginning in ancient Greece (Greek philosophy) and the ancient Near East (the Abrahamic religions), that continues to this day. ...

Collaboration with Buber

Rosenzweig, while critical of Jewish scholar Martin Buber's early work, became close friends with him upon their actually meeting. This friendship lasted despite their differences of political opinion: Buber was a Zionist, while Rosenzweig was a strong defender of the German-Jewish heritage and felt that a return to Israel would embroil the Jews into a worldly history they should eschew (this position was given a tragic tone by the death of Rosenzweig's wife in a concentration camp long after he himself had perished of disease). Further, Rosenzweig criticized Buber’s dialogical philosophy, because it is based not only on the I-You relation, but also on I-It a notion which Rosenzweig rejected as idealistic. He thought the counterpart to I-You should be He-It, namely “as He said and it became”: building it around the human I – the human mind – is an idealistic mistake. ^[2] Famously, they worked together upon a rather literal translation of the Torah from Hebrew to German. The translation, while contested, has led to several others translations (in other languages) along the lines of the same methodology and principles. Their publications concerning the nature and philosophy of translation are still widely read. Martin Buber (8 February 1878 – 13 June 1965) was an Austrian-Israeli-Jewish philosopher, translator, and educator, whose work centered on theistic ideals of religious consciousness, interpersonal relations, and community. ... A bilingual poster in Romanian and Hungarian promoting a film about Jewish settlement in Palestine, 1930s. ... The Torah () is the most important document in Judaism, revered as the inspired word of G-d (the vocal is never spelled), traditionally said to have been revealed to Moses. ... “Hebrew” redirects here. ...

Educational activities

Rosenzweig, unimpressed with the impersonal learning of the academy, founded the Independent House of Jewish Learning, a place for adult education that sought to promote Jewish literacy and involvement. His goal in turning aside more respectable University positions was to engage in dialogue with human beings rather than merely accumulate knowledge. The Lehrhaus, as it was known in Germany, was an innovative Jewish Free University, which produced many prominent Jewish intellectuals. In October 1922 Rudolf Hallo took over the leadership of the Lehrhaus. It stayed open until 1930, and was reopened by Martin Buber in 1933.

Illness and death

Rosenzweig suffered from the muscular degenerative disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS - the same disease which struck Stephen Hawking) and towards the end of his life had to write with the help of his wife Edith, who would recite letters of the alphabet until he indicated for her to stop, continuing until she could guess the word or phrase he intended (or, at other times, Rosenzweig would point to the letter on the plate of his typewriter). Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, sometimes called Lou Gehrigs Disease, Maladie de Charcot or motor neurone disease) is a progressive, fatal, neurodegenerative disease caused by the degeneration of motor neurons, the nerve cells in the central nervous system that control voluntary muscle movement. ... Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA, (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist. ...

Rosenzweig's final attempt to communicate his thought, via the laborious typewriter-alphabet method, consisted in the partial sentence: "And now it comes, the point of all points, which the Lord has truly revealed to me in my sleep, the point of all points for which there—". The writing was interrupted by his doctor, with whom he had a short discussion using the same method. When the doctor left, Rosenzweig did not wish to continue with the writing, and he died in the night, the sentence left unfinished.^[3]

Rosenzweig was buried on December 12, 1929. There was no oration, however Buber read Psalm 73.

References

1. ^ The Political Theology of Paul by Jacob Taubes, Stanford University Press, 2004, page 64.
2. ^ Franz Rosenzweig in Encyclopedia Judaica by Ephraim Meir and Rivka G. Horwitz, Thomson Gale, 2007.
3. ^ Nahum N. Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New York: Schocken Books, 1961, 2nd edn.), pp. 174–6.

Jacob Taubes (born 1923 in Vienna, died March 21, 1987 in Berlin) was a sociologist of religion, philosopher, and scholar of Judaism. ...

See also

• Interfaith dialogue

It has been suggested that Interfaith be merged into this article or section. ...

External links

• Vanderbilt University Exhibit