Franz Rosenzweig

the young generation”. Rosenzweig’s approach can be interpreted as an early
sign of the Jewish Renaissance to come in the early years of the 20th century
and particularly as a response to the disunity among European Jews during
World War One. He argues that an equal status accorded to the Jews as a
community necessarily would need to lead to equal standing in the academic
study of Judaism. Based on passages from his open letter “It Is Time” and
with reference to the response by Hermann Cohen (through the foundation
of the Academy for the Science of Judaism [Akademie für die Wissenschaft
des Judentums], 1919-1934), this essay looks at Rosenzweig’s impulses for
Jewish learning and scholarship with regard to his understanding of “Jewish
spiritual organisations”(jüdischgeistige Organisationen) and “new thinking”
(neues Denken) in Jewish religion.
– Gesine Palmer, Can “And” Be an End in Itself? The “And” in “Bildung
und kein Ende”
Many lines have been written on the two last words of Rosenzweig’s Star of
Redemption, “Ins Leben”. Many readers have been deceived into thinking
that life could be considered as an alternative to reading and learning, or at
least as the battlefield, on which the insights of the book must be put to test
and “bewährt” by sacrifice. In his essay “Bildung und kein Ende”, written in
1920 as an introduction into the “Lehrhaus”-project, Rosenzweig is getting
more explicit concerning the relation of education and life. In this artfully
composed text, Rosenzweig begins with a harsh criticism of German-Jewish
learning in his time. “Wissenschaft vom Judentum” is, in his view “genau
so wenig deutsch und genau so wenig jüdisch … wie - nun, wie etwa die
‘deutschen’ Zunamen, mit denen sich unsere Urgroßväter im ersten Rauch
der Emanzipation behängten.” (Italics by Rosenzweig). He suggests to open
a new space in which Jewish learning can be more than just a pale imitation
of Christian or secular learning, and he suggests to begin with the act of
opening a public consulting room (a “Sprechzimmer”), in which people are
invited to voice their problems and desires in the first place. The essay ends
with the word “Ende”, as part of a quotation of Qohelet, but all the opening
sentences in it begin with the word “and”. My paper will draw on the idea of
a European Jewish education and Rosenzweig’s view on Zionism, and it will
end with the claim that “and” is a beginning in itself.
– Benamin E. Sax, Mephistopheles’ Other: Franz Rosenzweig’s Midrash
on the German Bildungsbürgertum
This paper examines how Rosenzweig’s thinking operated within two distinct
canons: the German Bildungsbürgertum and the Jewish Classical tradition.
The conjunction “and” between these two traditions provides a unique space
to reflect upon how Rosenzweig grappled with the challenges regarding
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