Demands of the Day

Rosenzweig to Friedrich Meinecke, Aug 30th 1920:

The one thing I wish to make clear is that scholarship no longer holds the centre of my attention, and that my life has fallen under the rule of a 'dark drive' which I'm aware that I merely name by calling it 'my Judaism' […]

[The Star of Redemption] is only – a book. I don't attach undue importance to it. The small – at times exceedingly small – thing called 'demands of the day' which is made upon me in my position at Frankfurt, I mean … the struggles with people and conditions, have now become the core of my existence … Note I only inquire when I find myself inquired of. Inquired of, that is, by men rather than by scholars … [T]he questions asked by human beings have become increasingly important to me.

'My Judaism': for Rosenzweig, this meant a way of being together – of speaking to others and listening in turn. Speech, here, concerns not only thought – the exchange of ideas – but existence. Existence understood as a weave of relations, as holding out ahead of itself a kind of community, the dream of saying 'we' beyond institutions and nationalities.

'We': this collective would be like a multiphonal chorus, in which each voice would keep its integrity in the whole, but would still be part of the whole. But above all, the way to the 'we' would be through the 'you', the other person, whose love for you, for Rosenzweig, is the medium of God's love.

'Into life': those were the last words of The Star of Redemption. That's where Rosenzweig was heading: into life, existence, which was the only way, for him, that the validity of The Star could be shown. Hadn't he written about the significance of speaking to others? Hadn't he allowed the very category of speech to become prophetic?

That's what life meant to Rosenzweig, speech. And that's what thought meant to him: to become accountable to other human beings through the act of speaking. Rosenzweig knew he had no place in the university. It was a matter of returning to ancient Jewish texts, in a manner lost to both liberal assimilated Jewish contemporaries and the orthodox who were devoted to the Jewish law. It was a matter of discovering one's own life as a Jew in relation to the ancient sources, and therefore of bringing Judaism to life.

This is what Rosenzweig had in mind when he rejected an academic career to become the director of the newly founded Frankfurt Free Jewish School. Teachers and pupils came together in small groups, the former not as experts propounding a body of knowledge, but as fellow inquirers. Wasn't this what it meant to be 'inquired of' …?

Speech, thought Rosenzweig, was the bridge between human beings and God. It was in terms of speech that he rethought the basic categories of theology and philosophy. 'Theological problems must be translated into human terms, and human problems brought into the pale of theology', he wrote. Philosophical issues were human issues, and religion belonged to the most elementary structures of existence. How else was the world to be redeemed except through speech?

Into life: but Rosenzweig, submitting in the years following the completion of The Star to near total paralysis, lost the capacity to speak. For a while, his mutterings and chokings could be interpreted by his wife and closest friends, but it didn't last. For a time, his head could be lifted in his wife's hands and he could pronounce this word or that. But that time went, and he turned to his specially adapted typewriter to communicate, which was worked by moving a lever over a disc containing all the letters; you needed to press but a single key.

In time, he was able only to point to the letters, his arm held up by a sling; and soon even the chance of this indication ceased, and his wife had to ascertain his intentions with a mixture of instinct and guesswork. Soon it was left to her merely to spell the alphabet out loud, until he was able by a signal – an inarticulate sound, a sudden facial expression - to indicate the correct letter. His head, inclined to loll, was supported in an iron frame. What was left to him now? But he could commit to memory whole essays, which he would compose during sleepless nights. His wife, following his direction, would type them for him, guessing recurring words from the first or second letter.

Rosenzweig, upon his diagnosis, expected a quick death. But it didn't come. Several years passed before he died of pneumonia, the progressive paralysis stopping short of his vital organs. He 'wrote'. He translated the hymns and poems of Judah ha-Levi, the medieval Hebrew poet and wrote introduction to the collected Jewish writings of Hermann Cohen; he expounded The Star in a more popular style and reflected on Jewish learning.

Above all, there was his collaborative translation of the Bible with Buber, who would send him sheets of rough translation, by chapters, which Rosenzweig would then correct. They kept up vigorous correspondence – the correct translation of a single word could become the subject of weeks of debate. And Rosenzweig read, the nurses turning the pages for him when he cleared his throat.

During the years up to his death from pneumonia in 1929, Rosenzweig followed an elaborate daily routine, being washed and dressed – this alone took two and a half hours – breakfasting – another hour – before he was free for an hour and a half of work. Then lunch at one and a nap before a more prolonged period of work, from four until eight. In the evening after dinner, he would read until midnight.

It was not a solitary life. He received visitors, with whom his wife facilitated communication, discerning his responses to questions from his facial expression and generally keeping the conversation going. Buber spent every Wednesday with the family. A nurse was retained for the day and another for the night, the latter turning him so he would not be pained by remaining too long in the same position.

On the last full day of his life, December 10th, 1929, he began to dictate a letter to Buber:

… 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 …

And that was it. The doctor came, with whom Rosenzweig communicated, telling him he was feeling better. He should spare his strength rather than communicate further, said the doctor. Rosenzweig never finished his letter.

(following Glatzer)