Abstract:
In this essay, I argue that a comparison of Derrida’s “Faith and Knowledge” to the texts and thought of classical rabbinic Judaism can illuminate new conceptual connections among the different elements of Derrida’s thought. Both Derrida and the rabbinic texts can be viewed as affirming a type of “holding back” and “allowing the other to be,” stances which Derrida links to “religiosity” and to “messianicity beyond all messianism.” Moreover, the rabbinic texts appear to avoid the “autoimmune” reaction that Derrida sees as stemming from many sacrificial and self-sacrificial logics in which the self is problematically sacrificed in order to preserve the “unscathed” other. In addition, the rabbinic texts’ stance concerning divine authorization for war and capital punishment help to illuminate Derrida’s claim that the ostensibly “secular” wars of modern states are in fact better understood as “wars of religion.”
Keywords:
Derrida, sacrifice, rabbinic Judaism, messianism, altruism, war
How to cite:
Weiss, Daniel H. “Against Autoimmune Self-Sacrifice: Religiosity, Messianicity, and Violence in Derrida’s ‘Faith and Knowledge’ and in Classical Rabbinic Judaism.” Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 5, no. 3 (2021): 23-34. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2021.0025.
Author:
Daniel H. Weiss
Polonsky-Coexist Senior Lecturer in Jewish Studies
Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge
West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9BS, UK
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4402-5889
dhw27@cam.ac.uk
References:
Derrida, Jacques. Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.
Derrida, Jacques. “Faith and Knowledge: The Two Sources of ‘Religion’ at the Limits of Reason Alone.” In Acts of Religion, edited by Gil Anidjar. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Gibbs, Robert. “Messianic Epistemology.” In Derrida and Religion: Other Testaments, edited by Yvonne Sherwood and Kevin Hart. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Kavka, Martin. Jewish Messianism and the History of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511499098.
Levinas, Emannuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969.
Lorberbaum, Yair. In God’s Image: Myth, Theology, and Law in Classical Judaism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107477940.
Moltmann, Jürgen. “Israel’s ‘no’.” In The Way of Jesus Christ: Christology in Messianic Dimensions. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.
Neusner, Jacob. Vanquished Nation, Broken Spirit: The Virtues of the Heart in Formative Judaism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Schwarzschild, Steven. “On the Theology of Jewish Survival.” In The Pursuit of the Ideal, edited by Menachem Kellner. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.
Weiss, Daniel H. “Direct Divine Sanction, the Prohibition of Bloodshed, and the Individual as Image of God in Classical Rabbinic Literature.” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 32, no. 2 (2012): 23–38. https://doi.org/10.1353/sce.2012.0033.
Weiss, Daniel H. “Walter Benjamin and the Antinomianism of Classical Rabbinic Law.” Bamidbar: Journal for Jewish Thought and Philosophy 4, no. 1 (2015): 56-78.
Weiss, Daniel H. “‘And God Said’: Do Biblical Commands to Conquer Land Make People More Violent, or Less?” In Scripture and Violence, edited by Julia Snyder and Daniel H. Weiss. London: Routledge, 2021.
Wolfson, Elliot. Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania. New York: Fordham University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823255702.001.0001.
Open Access Statement:
This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Submitting a text to Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture means that the author agrees with the general conditions of this license. The author does and will maintain copyrights and publishing rights for his/her article without any restrictions.