Jewish existentialism is a category of work by Jewish authors dealing with existentialist themes and concepts (e.g., the debate about the existence of God and the meaning of human existence), intended to answer theological questions that are important in Judaism. The existential angst of Job is an example from the Hebrew Bible of the existentialist theme. Theodicy and post-Holocaust theology comprise much of 20th-century Jewish existentialism.
Examples of Jewish thinkers and philosophers whose works include existentialist themes are Martin Buber, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Lev Shestov, Benjamin Fondane, Franz Kafka, Franz Rosenzweig, Hans Jonas, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Emil Fackenheim.
Precursors
Jewish existentialism finds its roots in both the traditional philosophical school of existentialism and the peculiarities of Jewish theology, Biblical commentary, and European Jewish culture. Existentialism as a philosophical system grew as a result of the works of such non-Jewish thinkers as Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, and Martin Heidegger.
The Books of Ecclesiastes and Job, found in the Hebrew Bible and often cited as examples of wisdom literature in the Hebrew Biblical tradition, both include existentialist themes. The Book of Job tells the story of Job, who is beset by both God and Satan by many hardships intended to test his faith. He ultimately keeps his faith and receives redemption and rewards from God. The Book of Job includes many discussions between Job and his friends and between Job and God concerning the nature, origin, and purpose of evil and suffering in the world. The Book of Ecclesiastes is broader in scope and includes many meditations on the meaning of life and God's purpose for human beings on Earth. Passages in Ecclesiastes describe human existence in such terms as "all is futile"Ecclesiastes, 1: 2 and "futile and pursuit of wind".Ecclesiastes, 2: 26 Much Biblical scholarship and Talmud exegesis has been devoted to exploring the apparent contradiction between the affirmation of an all-powerful God's existence and the futility, meaningless, and/or difficulty of human life. Judaism's treatment of theodicy makes heavy use of the Books of Job and Ecclesiastes.
Some of the trends in the modern philosophy of existentialism come from concepts important to early Rabbinic and pre-Rabbinic Judaism. William Barret's Irrational Man, which traces the history of existentialist thought in the Western world, explains how the competing worldviews of Greco-Roman culture and Jewish culture have helped shape modern existentialism. Barrett says that the Jewish concept of the "man of faith" is one "who is passionately committed to his own being".Barret, William. Irrational Man: a Study in Existential Philosophy. New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1990. 76-77. The Jewish "man of faith", Barrett says, trusts in a God who can only know through "experience" and not "reasoning". Juxtaposed with the believing Jew is the skeptical Greek "man of reason" who seeks to attain God through "rational abstraction". The Greek invention of logic and the tradition of rational philosophical inquiry contributed to existentialism. The Greeks invented philosophy as an academic discipline and as a way to approach the problems of existence, eventually resulting in the philosophical works of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Kierkegaard and other existentialists. Jewish thought trends had much more influence on the important concepts of existentialism. Much of modern existentialism may be seen as more Jewish than Greek.
Several core concepts found in Jewish tradition that are often cited as the most important concepts explored by existentialism, include, for example, the "uneasiness" "deep within Biblical man", his "sinfulness", and his "feebleness and finiteness". While "the whole impulse of philosophy for Plato arises from an ardent search for escape from the evils of the world and the curse of time", Judaism recognizes the impossibility of trying to transcend the world entirely via intellectualism, lofty thoughts, and ideals. As the late Jewish existentialist Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993) articulates for a popular audience of secular Jews,
In the words of Barret, "right conduct is the ultimate concern of the Hebrew",Barret, 71. and indeed for the observant Jew, according to Soloveitchik. Therefore, the Jewish tradition is differentiated from the Greek system of thought, which emphasizes correct knowledge, thinking, and consciousness as the passports to the transcendence of the physical world. Some traditions of ancient Gnosticism, like the neo-Platonist desert cults, also subscribed to an idea similar to the Platonist ideal of "true knowledge of the Good" being a gateway to transcending one's ordinary, physical existence.
General existentialism and Jewish existentialism The philosophical school known as existentialism is generally regarded to have begun with the writings of the Danish Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855). Other important thinkers include the German Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900), the French Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980), and the German Martin Heidegger (1889 – 1976). Various Jewish existentialists found influence in the secular philosophy of existentialism and have made a range of critiques and commentaries of the above-mentioned writers' works.
Both Judaism and existentialism deny the ability of human beings to permanently transcend the physical world and one's own everyday existence. Theistic Judaism insists on a transcendent realm of existence beyond everyday human reality, that is, the realm of God. As a way of connecting to God, Judaism directs its adherents towards the strict observance of laws, both ritual and ethical, to add meaning to the adherents' lives (see Soloveitchik's Halakhic Man for a further discussion of the concept of the Jew making meaning in his own life by observing the Halakha). Modern existentialist philosophy often denies the existence of a higher power, leading some to classify it as an agnostic or atheistic thought structure. Heidegger posited that the discomfort caused by one's thrownness into existence,Heidegger, Being and Time. which is similar to what he says is the Jewish conception of "uneasiness" with being inherently sinful as a created being. Both senses of being ill-at-ease in one's skin are too inherent to the human condition to eliminate, according to Barret.Barret, 71. Traditional Jewish and, more broadly, existentialist thinkers—both Jewish and non-Jewish—have different solutions to this intrinsic uneasiness—also called existential anxiety or existential angst.
Jean-Paul Sartre's book Anti-Semite and Jew (1948) is a direct connection between secular existentialist thought-as-philosophy and Jewish existentialism as an expression of a religious mode of thinking. Sartre's humanistic argument against antisemitism is that,
Even out of the ashes of the Holocaust, Sartre insists on the supremacy and ultimate victory of rationalism over tribalism and hatred. The antisemite's hatred is a misguided attempt to rid one's society of evil, which is itself a noble aim. Sartre ties his existentialist, universal humanism to Judaism by denying the difference between Jews and others. By denying Jews the theological claim to Chosenness and explaining the Holocaust as a particularly nasty episode of utopianism gone wrong, Sartre attempts to offer hope to Jews worldwide. He insists that tribalism and pure hatred of Jews as 'aberrant outsiders' is not a source of antisemitism. He claims that "If the Jew did not exist, the antisemite would invent him."p. 13. Antisemitism is, in Sartre's philosophy, much more a reflection of the basic psychological need for a foreign object of hatred common in many people, including himself. In many cases, the object of hatred for non-Jews has been the Jewish people, which has functioned as the "scapegoat" of Europe for millennia.
History
20th century (Pre-WWII) boom
Martin Buber
Perhaps the preeminent Jewish existentialist is the Austrian theologian/philosopher Martin Buber. Buber wrote extensively on a variety of topics, including Biblical translation, Zionism, Hassidic culture, folklore and his concept of "a philosophy of dialogue".Herberg, Will, ed. Four Existentialist Theologians: A Reader from the Works of Jaques Maritain, Nicolas Berdyaev, Martin.155. He made a major contribution to Jewish existentialism with his popular 1923 book I and Thou (from the German, Ich und Du). The book is concerned with the dual concepts of the "I and You (Thou)" and "I and It" relationship, which is Buber's attempt to answer several age-old existential questions about the meaning of human existence. Buber says that human beings find meaning in their relationships with other entities in the world, whether these are inanimate objects, other people, or even a spiritual force like God. This Begegnung ("meeting")Buber, Martin. I And Thou. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970. 46 between human and object is what gives life meaning for each individual human. Buber goes on to show how human beings define themselves in relation to the other, either the "You" or the "I." He says that one's whole being is made by the relation one has to "The Other" – "When one says You, the I of the word pair I-You is said, too...Being I and saying I are the same."Buber, 54. And also, "The world as experience belongs to the basic word I-It. The basic word I-You establishes the world of relation."
The latter parts of Buber's I and Thou are concerned with the possibility for unity of all being. Buber takes a leaf from the book of Judeo-Christian mysticism and Buddhism and explores the concept of the unity of all beings in the universe. Buber admits that as a practicality, and for purposes of life in the real world, "In lived actuality there is not unity of being." Because of Buber's concept of the human being having his existence justified by each new interaction with an 'I' or 'Thou' object, his preferred brand of theology can be seen "not as pantheism, but as panentheism: not that everything is God, but that God may be in everything..."Smith, Ronald Gregor. Martin Buber (Makers of contemporary theology). New York: John Knox P, 1975, 17.
Buber wrote on a wide variety of topics. He wrote commentary on the socialist Zionist movement, classic gentile existentialist writers such as Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, and Nietzsche, and Hassidic folklore and culture, among many other topics from a variety of disciplines. In addition to all this, his concepts of the "I and Thou" dialectic and his "philosophy of dialogue" have become standard reading in the realm of positivist existentialist philosophy that seeks to bring meaning to human life. Ronald Gregor Smith writes, "The authentic Jewish note of existential 'realization' is never hard to detect." Buber had an ultimately optimistic view of people's ability to find meaning in life through the Jewish religion.
Franz Rosenzweig