Broken Immanence, that should be the name of our new intellectual movement, W. says, or of an 80s-style band similar to Flock of Seagulls. I think our band should be called The Stars of Redemption, I tell him and that Broken Immanence is a daft name for a movement. The Broken Immanentists – is that any better? To have a movement, of course, you have to have ideas, to stand for something. What do we stand for?
People used to believe things, we agree. It used to be possible to believe in things. Take Rosenzweig, for example (he is always our example). He was going to become a Christian. He was just about to convert – disarmed, he said, by his friend's simple confession of faith.
It came down to the discussion on a single night - July 7th 1913, when everything hung in the balance. Would he, Rosenzweig take his own life? He held a gun to his temple; he contemplated the nothing. Would he accept his new life as a Christian?
A few weeks passed, and there was another date – October 11th – and he reached another decision. He attended the Yom Kippur festival in a synagogue, and it became clear to him he should remain a Jew. Imagine that! He experienced something which led to a real consequence in his life. Have we ever experienced anything? Has anything ever happened to us?
On August 22nd 1918, due to a sudden inspiration, he begins The Star of Redemption, finishing it in less than six months, despite his active duty at the Macedonian Front, and long periods of illness and convalscence. Into life: that's how he concludes the book on February 16th, 1919: again, a date.
Into life: he plans to leave writing behind, to turn to the 'demands of the day', to everyday life. Everything is about dates and turning points! Then he founded the Lehrhaus … he turned his back on the university; he taught, he developed a new kind of teaching, in small groups with adult learners, rejoining assimilated Jews with the tradition with which they'd lost all relation.
And what of us?, we wonder. How will our lives be judged? What have we ever begun? Of what movement were we a part? When did we convert or lose our faith? … But in truth, we never had faith. We're not capable of it, or of anything. He was a broken immanentist, is that what they'll write on our graves? He was a member of Broken Immanence?
Lars Iyer's Blog 