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Abstract
The meaning of Torah min HaShamayim has been debated by Jewish theologians across the centuries and these discussions have intensified in the light of modern science and critical historical and biblical studies. The understandings of what is meant by the divinely revealed Torah have historically marked the boundaries of the Jewish community, and in the contemporary world define the limits of Orthodox Jewish identity. The recent statement of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) on Torah is the starting point for an analysis of two novel models of revelation by Louis Jacobs and Emmanuel Lévinas. The conclusion focuses on their ongoing relevance to the contemporary debates at the very heart of Orthodox Judaism.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. I concur with the assertion by Eliyahu Fink of the Pacific Jewish Centre that this is “the most important discussion in Orthodox Judaism right now” (http://finkorswim.com/2013/07/21/what-is-r-zev-farber-trying-to-do-and-what-should-be-our-response/).
2. See, Blau (Citation2013), “Now is the time to affirm that R. Farber’s views are incompatible with Orthodoxy.”
3. I grew up in this tradition and still belong to a shul shaped by the post-war version of Minhag Anglia although in recent decades there have been dramatic changes and a movement towards a more strident and less theologically open Orthodoxy.
4. Lionel Blue has a poignant way of classifying the different ways in which his Orthodox teachers reconciled themselves to the findings of biblical scholarship, or failed to do so (see Magonet Citation1991, 98).
5. First published in 1964 (New York: Basic Books).
6. Jacobs (Citation1973, see especially, chapters 14–16 on revelation; chapter 1 on the nature of Jewish theology, quotation p. 4). See also Samuelson (Citation2002).
7. First published in 1999 (London: Littman Library). See also Jacobs (Citation1987, Citation1992, Citation2005a, Citation2005c).
8. See Jacobs (Citation1963, Citation1966, Citation1972, Citation1977, Citation1990b, Citation1995b, Citation2005b). Also, on his own Hasidic encounters, see Jacobs (Citation1989).
9. This reductive reading is characteristic of Solomon (Citation2012, 264–266) and Ross (Citation2002), and the interview with her where she fails to acknowledge Jacobs's rationale for the rejection of cumulative revelation, and his very different theological agenda (http://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/prof-tamar-ross-on-revelation-and-biblical-criticism/; Harris Citation2006; Cosgrove Citation2008) fails to do full justice to Jacobs's original rendering of Jewish existentialism (see also liberal supernaturalism on TheTorah.com, http://thetorah.com/current-approaches/#9). I would also want to contend that Jacobs himself did not fully appreciate his indebtedness to the existentialist tradition as his focus was more centred on the “Jacobs's Affair,” his congregations and Anglo-Jewish Orthodoxy.
10. See Lévinas (Citation1961, Citation1969, section 1, “The Same And the Other,” 33–108). Also, see, the provocative and insightful, Batnitzky (Citation2006) and Putman (Citation2008, 37–54), for Rosenzweig, “the whole purpose of human life is revelation” (54, and see 68–99).
11. On this issue, see Samuelson (Citation2002, 236ff.).
12. Buber and Rosenzweig (Citation1994, 22–26) (The Unity of the Bible: A Position Paper vis-à-vis orthodoxy and liberalism [1927], letter to Rosenheim). This is often paralleled with Soloveitchik's comment on biblical criticism where he writes,I have never been seriously troubled by the problem of the Biblical doctrine of creation vis-à-vis the scientific story of evolution … Moreover, I have not even been troubled by the theories of Biblical criticism which contradict the very foundations upon which the sanctity and integrity of the Scriptures rest. (Citation1965, 8–9)His definite tone has a very different basis from Rosenzweig's critique but it is interesting that both comprehended the significance of the challenge even if they fundamentally re-contextualized the issue.
13. In relation to biblical studies per se, it is important to consult Weiss-Halivni (Citation1998) which affirms revelation while acknowledging human agency in the biblical text.
Additional information
Paul Morris is Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, where he holds the UNESCO Chair in Interreligious Understanding and Relations in New Zealand and the Pacific. His current research includes a monograph entitled Radical Jewish Theologies.