Theological implications of the Shoah : caesura and continuum as hermeneutic paradigms of Jewish theodicy / Massimo Giuliani.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Giuliani, Massimo, 1961-

Contributor:

Harry E. Humphreys Book Fund.

Series:

American university studies. Theology and religion Series VII,

American university studies VII, Theology and religion ; vol. 221

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Holocaust (Jewish theology).

Hermeneutics--Religious aspects--Judaism.

Hermeneutics.

Judaism--History--Philosophy.

Judaism.

Theodicy.

Language and languages--Religious aspects--Judaism.

Language and languages.

Judaism--Doctrines.

History.

Philosophy.

Physical Description:

ix, 322 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Peter Lang, 2002.

Contents:

Methodological Premises

Legitimacy of a philosophical-theological approach to the Shoah 1

The concept of "historical novum" as a pivot in the theological interpretations of the Shoah 5

Theological structure of Jewish self-understanding and the Shoah 8

Historical, theological, and ethical-moral parameters 13

Objections against the Jewish self-consciousness and its theological dimension 16

Chapter 1 The Shoah Between Faith, Theology, and Theodicy 21

The testimony against God, or the crisis of the theodicy 25

Idea of evil, idea of God, on the reason of the failure of every philosophical theodicy 29

On the defeat of the biblical and rabbinic theodicy 34

Three myths of creation in comparison (plus another: that of the Messiah) 39

Variations on the theme of the Messiah: the christological theodicies of Barth and Pareyson 45

The recourse to myth as a reconciliation of the contradictions of the theodicy 49

The myth of the Chaoskampf and theodicy after Auschwitz 54

The Shoah posing the theme of Chaoskampf in a new way 57

The consciousness of the irredeemable 59

Theodicies and the thought of the irredeemable 61

The Shoah as irredeemable and the Chaoskampf 63

The fragility of the world is the fragility of God 65

First Interlude 69

Chapter 2 The Shoah, Crisis of Language, and Theological Apophatism 73

Linguistic de-creation as the cipher of the Shoah 76

Silence: last option or temptation? To witness after the witnesses 82

Word of God and theological language in the perspective of the Shoah 85

The silence of Auschwitz retrojected onto the holy texts 87

Biblical analogies and metaphors projected onto the event 91

Rereading the Bible in the retrospective perspective of the Shoah 95

The corrective mediation of the Midrash between text and context 97

The denomination, or the linguistic character of the biblical anthropo-theology 102

A name for the event: beyond the tradition 105

Churban/khurbn and Shoah: two names, two readings 110

Holocaust: semantic ambiguity and subconscious allusion 114

A name for God: beyond the concept 118

Cancellation of the name and caesura in the name 121

Kiddush haShem as tikkun haShem? 125

Tikkun ha'olam as a salvation of the language. Myth and reality of Hebrew 128

Rupture in the linguistic continuity. Toward a "theological apophatism" 133

Second Interlude 139

Chapter 3 Shoah and the Contemporary Jewish Self-Understanding 143

"Perspective illusions" on the implications of the Shoah. Center and margin in theology 146

The Shoah and the ambiguity of the notion of the "chosen people" 151

Against Rosenzweig, for a historical conception of election and Jewish existence 155

Surviving the Shoah as proof of election 158

The fight for election as a stake of anti-Judaism (and preparation for the Shoah) 161

Emil Fackenheim: Jewish survival as a theological value in and of itself 165

Caesura and Tikkun in the Jewish existence, the dilemma of Fackenheim 168

Surviving by chance. The theology between blasphemy and 'accident' 172

Auschwitz: Sinai or anti-Sinai of the contemporary Jews? Limits and forces of a metaphor 176

Auschwitz: hevelei Mashiah (messianic labor pains), or an end to all faith in the Messiah? 181

Hevelei mashiah, teshuvah, and geulah in R. Elchanan Bunem Wasserman's teaching 186

Exile, Messianism, and the Shoah as hester panim, in the thinking of Eliezer Berkovits 189

The Shoah between Zionism and Anti-Zionism. Still on the interpretation of exile and Messiah 195

The Shoah as a consequence of the lack of adherence to the Zionist ideals 198

The Shoah, consequence of the "sin of Zionism" and the usurpation of Messianic claims 200

The uniqueness of the Shoah and religious interpretations of the event. On a misunderstanding 203

Towards a "Messianism of responsibility" for a new Jewish consciousness 206

Shoah and the state of Israel: theological ambiguities of a complex historical relationship 208

Third Interlude 213

Chapter 4 Hermeneutic Problems in Jewish Thought After the Shoah 219

The Shoah as a new paradigm of/in Jewish history? The reflection of Irving Greenberg 223

On the criticisms of Steven Katz. Covenant "in pieces" or "between the pieces" 228

Caesura and continuum, systole and diastole in the "breath of the tradition" 233

A caesura in the continuity of tradition: relativism of all novum? 239

A continuum in the consciousness of modernity. Caesura of caesura? 243

Recognizing the crisis, saving the faith. Between Wiesel's riv and Schweid's religiodicy 249

Memory of the Shoah in Haggadic and Halakhic thought 253

Shoah and Haggadic thought 255

Shoah and Halakhah 256

Where faith arrives, and where it does not 258

The thought of the irredeemable in Judaism as a religion of redemption 262

The irredeemable: possibility or necessity for a theology of redemption? 265

Shoah as irredeemable, unforgivable, imprescriptible. A "theological cipher" 269

The drama of God in the drama of Israel 273.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [309]-318) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Harry E. Humphreys Book Fund.

ISBN:

0820457248

OCLC:

47658837