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Yeshayahu Leibowitz: Jewish existentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2014

ROI BENBASSAT
ROI BENBASSAT*
Affiliation:
Institute of Comparative Ethics, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany e-mail: rbhead@gmail.com
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Abstract

This article presents Yeshayahu Leibowitz's conception of Judaism and characterizes his position as typically religious-existentialist. It confronts Leibowitz's conception with Kantian ethics, refutes the analogy made between these two conceptions, and shows that Leibowitz's response to Kant is analogous to that of Kierkegaard, the Christian existentialist thinker. It considers Leibowitz's religious position a Jewish variation of Kierkegaard's notion of faith in the absurd. Such an analogy enables us not only to elucidate Leibowitz's religious conception but also to evaluate the implications of Kierkegaard's religious thought in a broader context.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 141 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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