Mending a Frail Humankind: Remedial Hermeneutics and Messianic Anthropology in Joseph Soloveitchik

This essay focuses on Joseph Soloveitchik’s re-semantization and renewal of the Jewish concept of messianism. In his view, the idea of Messiah is personified and, at the same time, deferred, as an allegory for ceaseless and ever-changing transformations, both individual and communitarian. Biblical personae endowed with a messianic impulse, such as Abraham, Esther, Mordecai, Tamar, and Ruth, are seen by Soloveitchik as eschatological and metahistorical figures, co-redeemers and co-creators with God, and models with whom human beings may identify. In this framework, particular attention will be paid to Soloveitchik’s conception of midrashic hermeneutics, as an always open process of individual and collective self-knowledge and self-redemption; and to the dialectical opposition between “revealed world” and “hidden world” as the constitutive element of Soloveitchik’s vision of the humanity-to-come

Antropologia Mosaica: Risvolto politico della perfetta profezia e speranza messianica nel pensiero di Mosè Maimonide.

Lo scopo principale della mia tesi è quello si esaminare l'eccezionalità della profezia di Mosè e il suo risvolto etico-politico alla luce del pensiero di Mosè Maimonide. Nella prima parte, rivolgerò l'attenzione all'idea di profezia che emerge dagli scritti maimonidei. In particolar modo, è mia intenzione evidenziare le discrepanze tra le descrizioni di profezia presenti nella Guida dei perplessi, nel Mishneh Torah e nel Commento alla Mishnah. Lo scopo di tale comparazione è quello di comprendere il naturalismo di Maimonide, espresso nei quattro paradigmi di eccellenza umana: Adamo, Abramo, Mosè e il Messia. Nella seconda parte, analizzerò la complementarietà tra la missione profetica di Abramo e la missione profetica di Mosè, al fine di evidenziare l'importanza dell'era messianica nella storia dell'ebraismo. Per Maimonide l'avvento del Messia rappresenta la condizione necessaria perché si possano realizzare le tre forme di redenzione, la redenzione nazionale di Israele, la redenzione universale della razza umana, e la redenzione individuale dell'uomo. The main aim of my thesis is to explore at length the singularity of Moses' prophecy and its ethical-political implications, in the light of Maimonides' thought. In the first part, I will focus my attention on Maimonidean idea of prophecy one can find in his works. In particular, it is my intention to underscore the the differences between the descriptions of prophecy one finds in Maimonides' principal works, The Guide of the Perplexed, Mishneh Torah and Commentary on the Mishnah. The purpose of this comparison is to understand Maimonides' naturalism, expressed in the four paradigms of human excellence: Adam, Abraham, Moses and the Messiah. In the second part, I will analyze the complementarity between Abraham's prophetical mission and Moses' prophetical mission in order to underline the importance of Messianic age in the history of Judaism. For Maimonides, the coming of the Messiah means the necessary condition to realize the three kind of redemption, the national redemption of Israel, the universal redemption of humankind, the individual redemption of man

Il sogno di Giacobbe e la conoscenza profetica in Mosè Maimonide

The article focuses on Maimonides’ political philosophy (and theology of history), taking the cue from his interpretations of Jacob’s dream (Gen. 28, 12-14), as presented in Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah (7, 3), in the Epistle to Yemen, and in the Guide (Introduction; I, 15, II, 10). Key-themes (such as the nature of prophecy, messianic redemption, and our knowledge of physical and metaphysical realities) are addressed by comparing Maimonides’ approach to Midrashic and Talmudic traditions, to the ‘Platonism’ of al-Fārābi, and to ibn Bājja’s ideal of solitary life. Finally, Maimonides’ Jacob (a philosopher and prophet) is put vis-à-vis Yehudah ha-Lewi’s Jacob: the last single individual who was in direct contact with the divine power, before begetting the Twelve Tribes

Adamo, Abramo, Mosè e Rabbi Akiba: quattro livelli di perfezione umana nella lettura di Maimonide

The article focuses on Maimonides’ models of human perfection, in the light of the scholarship of the last fifty years (Joseph Soloveitchik, David Hartman, Aviezer Ravitzky, Kenneth Seeskin, and Menachem Kellner). In the Guide of the Perplexed and, especially, in the Mišneh Torah, Maimonides sketches four models of human excellence: Adam, Abraham, Moses and Rabbi Akiba. These models reveal tension between opposing poles: the prophetic perfection, out of the reach of man, and the sense of finitude and fallibility; the silence of contemplation and the sense of responsibility towards one’s community. The result is an anthropology of human finitude and a communal philosophy, in which Maimonides attempted to portray the post-Edenic man, forced to live in a peculiar “exile”, different from the historical one of Israel

Cripto-ebraismo e metamorfosi antropologico-politiche: Variazioni filosofiche contemporanee su Ester

The story of Esther has been interpreted in many conflicting or diverging ways: a handbook of politics and theology; a portrait of «the instability and uncertainty that govern the fate of the Jews»; a comedy, a burlesque about courtly life in Persian empire. In opposition to the former queen Vashti, a static character, unwilling to accept a subordinate role within the courtly environment, Esther appears as a creative and dynamic agent, because of her being always the Other: the Other of man (Mordecai and Ahasuerus), of society (Persian court), and of Judaism (i.e., land-centered Judaism). Esther’s personality develops from passivity to activity. Thanks to her personal resources and to a dialectical relationship with Mordecai, she emerges from her initial concealment, submissiveness, and weakness, finally becoming the authoritative leader who saves her own community from annihilation. Taking into account contemporary scholars (like Joseph Soloveitchik, Yoram Hazony, Michael Fox, and Adele Berlin), this article focuses on Esther’s metamorphoses, understood as theological-political models of human behavior, both individual and social

Maimonide negli Stati Uniti. Alla ricerca di un razionalismo teologico-politico

The book aims at offering a critical outline of the many forms of contemporary Maimonidean scholarship in the US. The research is divided into three sections. The first one (From Europe to the United States: A Translatio Studiorum) aims at investigating the connection between these neo-Maimonideanisms and the transfer of ideas and institutions between Europe and the United States/Israel in the decades following the Second World War. These returns to Maimonides reveal also an interweaving with two models of reading: the ethical rationalist model sketched by Hermann Cohen and the reductionist and "esoteric" approach of Leo Strauss. The second part (Between Ethical Rationalism and Socio-political Theology) draws a map of the contemporary re-readings of Maimonides, focusing especially on Kenneth Seeskin's "theology of separation"; the "way of integration" between Athens and Jerusalem sketched by David Hartman; Menachem Kellner's new perspectives on messianism, identity, and chosenness. The third section (Community, Human Perfection, and Messianism) offers three possible paths through Maimonides' work, putting these manifold voices – and my own – in dialogue. A series of Maimonidean key-issues are addressed: the ideal of human perfection, as embodied by the patriarchs and Moses, the nature and the role of the community in Maimonides' responsa, the clash between Jewish particularism and universalism, Israel's chosenness, and redemptive future

Teologia politico-sociale e razionalismo etico: Maimonide nel pensiero statunitense contemporaneo

Tema della tesi sono le riletture ‘militanti’ di Mosè Maimonide (1138-1204) nel dibattito statunitense contemporaneo. Dagli anni Novanta del secolo scorso fino ad oggi, con diverse metodologie e inflessioni tematiche, autori statunitensi ricollegabili sotto l’etichetta generale dei Jewish Studies hanno proposto riletture del pensiero di Maimonide che attualizzano questioni centrali quali universalismo messianico e particolarismo nazionale oppure la dialettica tra comunità etnico-religiosa e ideali di individuo e di umanità. Ne emerge un Maimonide spesso addirittura svincolato dal pensiero ebraico medievale e trasformato in strumento di critica politica e identitaria in chiave contemporanea

Socio-Political Readings of the Return to Sinai: In Dialogue with David Hartman and Joseph Soloveitchik

The article compares the socio-political models patterned on the return to Sinai, as envisaged by Joseph Soloveitchik (1903-1993) and David Hartman (1931-2013). For Hartman, Sinai − the collective memory of the place to which man constantly returns − shapes halakhic hope and responsibility, urging to combine prophetical morality and political demands into a covenantal perspective. Whereas Hartman’s reflection is engagée in so far as it looks to the complexities of Israeli political reality as the background of a renewed Jewish Covenant, Soloveitchik understands the return to Sinai within a more existentialistic framework, bringing a blend of East European Jewry outlook and German philosophical tradition into the American debate. He aims at intellectual, spiritual, and identitarian resistance. Particular attention is paid to the complementarity between the Exodus experience and Sinai revelation; the transition from a covenant of fate into a covenant of mission; the interweaving between freedom, slavery, time-awareness, and storytellin