Franz Rosenzweig

Franz Rosenzweig (born Dec. 25, 1886, Kassel, Ger.—died Dec. 10, 1929, Frankfurt am Main) was a German-Jewish religious Existentialist who, through his fresh handling of traditional religious themes, became one of the most influential modern Jewish theologians. In 1913, although his conversion to Christianity had seemed imminent, a religious experience caused him to devote his life to the study, teaching, and practice of Judaism. While on active service in World War I, he began his magnum opus, Der Stern der Erlösung (1921; The Star of Redemption, 1971). From 1922 he was afflicted with progressive paralysis but continued work on numerous projects, including a new German translation of the Hebrew Bible in collaboration with Martin Buber.

Franz Rosenzweig was born in 1886, the only child of Georg and Adele (née Alsberg) Rosenzweig. His father was a well-to-do dye manufacturer and member of the city council; his mother, a deeply sensitive and cultured woman. Franz grew up in an environment of civic responsibility and cultivation of literature and the arts; religious beliefs and observance were no longer evident, beyond perfunctory participation on some occasions. In his university days the gifted young man first started to study medicine (at Göttingen, Munich, and Freiburg) but after a few semesters turned to his real interest: modern history and philosophy (at Berlin and Freiburg). In 1910 he embarked on a study of Hegel’s political doctrines. His doctoral dissertation (1912) was to become a section of Hegel und der Staat (“Hegel and the State”), a comprehensive work completed some years later. Yet, while steeped in this research, Rosenzweig developed a critical attitude toward Hegel’s overemphasis on history and his treatment of the individual person’s life as irrelevant to the “whole.” In rejecting Hegel, Rosenzweig opposed the philosophic movement known as German Idealism, with its attempt to construct reality out of abstract concepts. Increasingly he tended toward an “existential” philosophy that found its starting point in the experience and concerns of the concrete individual person.

Some of his friends (especially the jurist and historian Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy), who were equally critical of the academic philosophy of the day, had found the solution to the problem of man in religious faith (specifically, conversion to Christianity) and in a dialogical relationship between man and God. After an intense inner struggle Rosenzweig decided in July 1913 to relinquish his Jewish heritage (barely known to him), to accept his friends’ interpretation of modern Protestantism as an existential, dialogical faith, and to undergo Baptism. At this critical point in his life, however, he attended the Day of Atonement service in a small, traditional synagogue in Berlin (Oct. 11, 1913). The liturgy of this fast day focusses on the motifs of human sinfulness and divine forgiveness, the realization of life as a standing before God, the affirmation of the oneness of God and of his love. The drama of the liturgy had a powerful effect on Rosenzweig. What he thought he could find only in the church—faith providing an orientation in the world—he found that day in the synagogue. He felt he had to remain a Jew. There followed a period of self-examination to determine whether the emotional experience of that Day of Atonement would stand up to rational criteria. After this clarification, Rosenzweig was determined to devote his life to the study, teaching, and practice of Judaism. The academic year 1913–14 was entirely devoted to an intensive reading of classical Hebrew sources and to attending lectures by Hermann Cohen, an eminent German-Jewish thinker, the founder of the Neo-Kantian school in philosophy.

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With the outbreak of World War I, Rosenzweig joined the armed forces and spent most of the duration of the war at the Balkan front, in an anti-aircraft gun unit. The relatively undemanding service allowed Rosenzweig time for study and writing. In 1916–17 he engaged in an exchange of letters with Rosenstock-Huessy on core theological problems in Judaism and Christianity, published in Judentum und Christentum (Judaism Despite Christianity, 1969), wrote newspaper articles on political and strategic questions, drew up a plan for a reform of the German school system, and wrote “Zeit ist’s” (“It Is Time”), a program for a reorganization of Jewish education and scholarship (included in On Jewish Learning, 1955). In 1918, while attending an officers’ training course near Warsaw, in German-occupied Poland, he had opportunity to observe the life and the customs of eastern European Jews and was deeply impressed by the vitality and richness of their faith. Upon returning to the trenches he felt ready to embark on what was to become his magnum opus: an existentialist religious philosophy demonstrating the mutual relationships between God, man, and the world. This “new thinking” is based on human experience, common sense, and the reality of language and dialogue. The central point of the architectonically arranged work in which this thought is expressed is the act of “revelation” in which God in his love turns to man and awakens within him the consciousness of an “I.” Der Stern der Erlösung, completed in 1919, appeared in 1921. The work was ignored by the various trends in academic philosophy but highly regarded by Existentialist and, especially, younger Jewish theologians.

In early 1920 Rosenzweig married Edith Hahn of Berlin and wrote “Bildung und kein Ende” (included in On Jewish Learning as “Towards a Renaissance of Jewish Learning”), outlining a plan for a Jewish adult study centre. Later in the year he was appointed head of such a centre (the Freies Jüdisches Lehrhaus) in Frankfurt am Main. There students were encouraged to examine classical Hebrew sources, searching for what is vital and relevant. The school became a model for similar institutions elsewhere in Germany. Rosenzweig’s active directorship did not last long; early in 1922 he was afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an often fatal form of progressive paralysis. In September 1922 his son Rafael was born. The child brought comfort to the father, whose paralysis affected his whole body, including the vocal organs. In a true heroism of the spirit, although unable to speak or write in a direct physical sense, he managed to continue living as an active scholar, writer, and friend, deeply concerned for his fellowman and community. With the help of his wife, a system of signals between them, and a specially constructed typewriter, he produced important essays and an annotated German version of the medieval Hebrew poetry of Judah ha-Levi.

From 1925 on he embarked, together with Martin Buber, the eminent German-Jewish philosopher and biblical interpreter, on a new German translation of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). The translation occasioned a series of articles by him on aspects of biblical thought and style. As a hobby he also wrote reviews of records of classical and sacred music. Nowhere in these works of his paralytic years did the reader detect that the author was mortally ill. Everywhere in them there is evidence of a fresh, keen spirit, intellectual clarity, religious faith, and a sense of humour. He died in 1929. His influence on Jewish religious thought grew remarkably in the decades after his death.