Strauss why we remain jews

That means that out of this undeniable necessity one must make a virtue. There follows a long discussion of varieties of anti-Jewish sentiment through the ages, meant to establish both the noble nature of Jewish belief and the heroic nature of Jewish struggle against persecution.

It is surely nobler to be a victim of the most noble dream than to profit from a sordid reality and wallow in it. The belief admitted by all believers in science today—that science is by its nature essentially progressive, and eternally progressive—implies, without saying it, that being is mysterious. And here is the point where the two lines I have tried to trace do not meet exactly, but where they come within hailing distance. And, I believe, to expect more in a general way, of people in general, would be unreasonable.

But modern political philosophy threatened both sides of this binary. Strauss, it should be said, was such a Jew: an atheist by belief, but willing to affirm the importance of the most traditional understanding of Jewish religion as revealed, divine law.

Strauss himself embraced neither of the possibilities that he invokes at the end of his talk, science and revealed religion. At its heart is a rather pessimistic and deeply hierarchical understanding of human possibilities. Whatever else it may mean, my fasting on Wednesday will not be an attempt on my part to forestall nihilism by publicly reaffirming a necessary, noble delusion.

I mean, one can prove this by a simple picture. In some medieval churches, especially in the Munster in Strassburg, there is a presentation of the Church and the Synagogue.

The Church: eyes open; the Synagogue: blindfolded. And that is in the twentieth century. So I believe that is why there are many people who have become doubtful whether it is wise to speak of "progress. And it is also prudent to assume that there will be further changes from us to Jews a hundred years from now. But that this should be a progress is an unwarranted assumption. And in this respect, I think this lady, if I may use this elegant term, my blessings.

But not more. Questioner: I am afraid I did not make my question very clear. And it seems to me that this change is continuing, and therefore will continue in the future, and I think it is reasonable. Strauss: Aha! That is the key point. I mean, change is undeniable. But for better or for worse, that is the question.

Questioner: Well, I bring the question back to the basic discussion: why do we remain Jews? In view of this continuing change going on, we have to define "what is a Jew," and "what are we remaining," "what have we changed from," and "what are we changing to. Strauss: Well, that was exactly the dream of the eighteenth century. Lessing put it this way, in a letter to Moses Mendelssohn, if I remember well. Lessing was absolutely sick and tired of religious controversy, you know.

He was not an orthodox Lutheran, and he got into all kinds of troubles. And he said: "I wish I could go to a country where there were neither Jews nor Christians. You know that that is controversial, because it raises the question: what does the First Amendment mean? But this is no longer an aspiration. Now we have some experiences with a secular society.

And if we are sensible, we must consider that experience. And I think you cannot show any. Because, you see, even granting what some people suspect—that a hundred years from now there will no longer be religious people in practical terms, that the members of religious communities, churches, synagogues, and so on, will become a tiny minority—even that would, of course, not mean that the distinction between Jews and Christians, between Jews and non- Jews rather, would disappear.

How this goes together in the thought of the Jewish tradition, that is a very deep and very old question—but the fact is undeniable. You see, all practical questions must be settled here and now. If social science claims to predict, it does not mean that it can predict the circumstances in which Jews will live a hundred years from now. I mean that from a practical point of view.

They are theoretically very interesting. Questioner: I have both uneasiness to express, and a question to ask you. The uneasiness that I want to express first, has to do with the fact that in the contemporary world—and I am directing my comment to the rather easy way in which you talked about the Christians on the one hand, and then the non-Jews on the other—in the contemporary world the outstanding anti-Jews, or Jew haters, have not been Christians, but have been Nazis on the one hand , who have not been Christians, and communists on the other , who have also not been Christians.

Strauss: That is correct. Do you see any Judaizing in the contemporary world of Christianity, or Christianizing of Judaism? Strauss: No. Surely not. I mean, I do not know whether the examples you chose were the ones I would have chosen—I mean, the individuals you mentioned—but that is truly irrelevant.

You are right. I know that. And I would assume that there were at all times deep Christians who in their heart of hearts saw the same thing: that this is incompatible with Christianity. Glad as I am about these developments, I must not give up a certain how shall I say? In other words, I must also speak of the seamy side of the matter.

By this I do not wish for one moment to impugn the motives of any individual concerned with these matters. No question. But you cannot be blind to the fact that, for a hundred years, gradually building up and now coming to the fore in our century, there is a very powerful movement which is both anti-Christian and anti-Jewish. And this, of course, leads You know, when a new party arises, and it is very powerful, then the older parties, who were in a dogfight up to this point, might be compelled to make peace among themselves.

That this reconciliation could be, in the case of Judaism and Christianity, in the spirit of the noblest aspirations of the noblest Jews and Christians is shown by the fact, you know, that we Jews find all kinds of statements to this effect in Halevi, Maimonides, and so on. This was exactly what I tried to show.

You see the point? Of course not. The Romans and Greeks in Alexandria and other places were as much anti-Jewish as the most wicked monks in Germany or in Italy or wherever it was. In other words, this fact, that quite a few Christians were friendly toward Jews, is significant—and I mentioned Nietzsche advisedly, from this point of view, although Nietzsche was surely not a Christian, as you all know; but Nietzsche surely was very German, and he is held partly responsible for the Nazis.

And we find other cases: for example. Max Weber, a man very well known in the social sciences; the philosopher Schelling, much less known; and there were some other famous cases —precisely in Germany—who were not only friendly to Jews, but showed a very profound understanding of what one would call the "substance" of Judaism, which a man who is friendly to Jews does not as such possess, as you all know.

Surely that exists. But we must not forget the background of this reconciliation. A new power has arisen, Marxist communism, which promised—by a break, by a radical break, with the whole past—to destroy the very possibility of anti-Jewish feelings and thoughts.

Yet Marx's present-day successors, like Khrushchev, have restored anti-Jewish policies on a communist basis. However this may be, communism in principle threatens Judaism and Christianity equally. But it is most important to realize, as I tried to show by the comparison of the Greek Orthodox church with the Synagogue, that the actual policies of that common enemy are much more anti-Jewish than anti-Christian.

I know the facts you mention. My reference to the terrible times in the Middle Ages was due only in order to dispel Heine's crude and simplistic view: misfortune. That was not mere misfortune; that was something much greater than misfortune. Strauss: I never have considered it.

I do not know. I mean, in the first place I would say that the desire to have someone to look down on is not limited to anti-Jewish people. I have known Jews who have had the same desire. So let us not be self-righteous at this point. But, you know, every chaser after badges does not have to be vicious, but the element of viciousness is in that.

But as for this point which you have made, I am not so familiar with the details of anti- Jewish and anti-Negro propaganda. The facts as you stated them—if they are facts—would simply prove that there is more Jewish property to distribute easily than the Negroes have. Questioner: As a non-Jew I find that one of my greatest problems is, as you mentioned at the very end of your lecture, the fact of being and the infinity which underlies and holds up the idea of progress.

And I find myself standing before this idea of being, and looking at a Jew as if the difference between him and me was irrelevant. The one thing that seems to distinguish us in our attitudes and I suppose you could call me a "humanist" is that before the fact of being I acknowledge that all our symbols are relevant, and that we all stand under the same dispensation.

But the Jew will not admit that. He will never merely say, "You are a man as I. Strauss: Oh, that is not true; I mean, that is simply not true. Strauss: Oh God! That is, I think, really unfair. That is as if you would blame a Christian for saying that he is a Christian.

Would you say that a Christian as Christian denies to non- Christians the qualities of men? Or a Muslim or Buddhist? Or if a man says, "I am an American," does he deny that the people who are not Americans are not human beings? But the Christians make certain assertions about dogma. I find that there are certain people, such as you dealt with to some extent in raising the problem of the Jew who cannot believe as his fathers believed.

Now, I am inclined to think also that the question of race as a Nazi problem is merely a residual one. That is: there may continue, out of choice, to be people who choose to stay in the tradition and race, and who may continue, for so long as there is a human race, a seed which is what we would call a "distinctive race.

But people who—to put it very cynically—people who believe themselves to be descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Yes, sure. That could be. But I would say, I do not see where there is anything wrong with that.

Questioner: Yes. But the whole point is that given this fact that race as such I mean, one has only to go to New York and watch, for instance. All these peoples call themselves Jews, and the idea of physical race.

Strauss: "Race" as it is used in any human context is not a subject about which biologists can say anything. This is clear. Questioner: Right. So this then is my point.

We have the Jew who cannot identify himself with any dogmatic fixation of his fathers. And yet withal he insists on calling himself a Jew. Now, he may be a Jew, but his Jewishness consists in a myth. Which can be a reality, I grant you, in the human consciousness, but I cannot lay my hands on it. Strauss: Well, that is very, very nice of you to say that it might exist, although you cannot lay your hands on it.

But I would say I have tried to explain that. I took the extreme case of a Jew who feels—I did not take your particular "humanist," but I could also have taken him— who thinks that this was all, well, perhaps a noble belief, but it is not a true belief, and so he cannot share it. But what is he going to do? How does it look in practice? And the simplest thing you can show is the first step. Now, suppose you tell this man, "All right, you don't wear a beard.

So, in other words, all other things which he can possibly change in his external appearance he will change. He may even change his name.

I mean, let us go into this; if we want to commit the act of treason, we must go into that. Good, now how do we go from here? I would say you will discover—except in extremely rare cases— somewhere flies in the ointment. For example, this very liberal Jew and this very liberal non-Jewess are not descended from rocks or oaks to quote an old poet , but from human beings. By which I mean, they belong to families. And the families do not necessarily see eye to eye with their most liberal members.

The Jew may be willing to say, "All right, I will never see my father, mother, brother, and sister again. Why did you marry that Jew?

I mean, you cannot wish away these things. Then you would have to form colonies, in which only people who have broken with their Jewish heritage or past origins, and with their Christian past origins, would live together.

People have made such small communities for other purposes; for example, for trying out socialism and communism. But they are mentioned in the histories of social movements as amiable, but wholly ineffective. It does not work. If you take it on the lowest ground of practice—I mean, just Machiavellian recipes for getting rid of their misfortune—it does not work. It can work in individual cases.

I do not know whether one could say, if one may speak of a living man in this connection, that perhaps Bernard Baruch is an example where it worked. But this is a very old man now, in addition, living in the American South. That I have heard; I do not know that. There may be other cases of this kind. But if it is a problem of a social kind, i. And he would say that a solution which is even perfect for him, is imperfect because of these bonds; and the fundamental point seems to me to be this.

Again speaking detachedly, hard-boiledly, and disregarding all of the deeper issues—why do you want perfect solutions? Questioner: But that is the whole point. I am not looking for a solution. You see, I do not want Jews to cease to exist. Strauss: Oh! That is why a man who is a religious Jew, with a position before the mystery of being, this is a position for which I have respect; rather more, let me say in passing, than many others with which I am acquainted.

But I meet people who do not have this orientation. That is, I believe, empirically wrong. I mean, if you mean by myth something fabricated, merely figured out, That was an implication of the traditional Jewish faith. And that the Jews know—most of them. I mean, it is perfectly clear, this difficult position in which modem Jews are; I have not brought it out fully because I thought everyone knows it.

Every Jew surely knows it, and every thoughtful non-Jew who knows any Jews also does not have to be told. These are things which are partly very painful to bring out, if no useful purpose is served—in other words, merely for the sake of the record.

That is, I would not do that. But, on the other hand, one cannot deny it, and deny, as you call it, its "reality. The theories of this or that Zionist ideology, these can be said to be myths. When I was still studying these things with intensity many decades ago, I always made a distinction between Pinsker as the clearest case on the one hand, and Nordau on the other.

And I always went more for the more direct people, you know, who started from what everyone could know. And there are all kinds of other things as well, but I do not wish to go into intra-Jewish polemics. You are aware of the fact that there are Jews, a minority in this country, who regard the state of Israel as to use a mild expression a pain in the neck.

I know these people, but one can simply say that they are the delusionists. One can also say it as follows, also on the lowest denominator: the Jewish problem, as it is called, is the most simple and available exemplification of the human problem.

That is one way of stating that the Jews are the chosen people. If that is properly developed, the whole of the other things would come out. The clean solutions of which people dream and dreamt have led either to nothing, or to a much greater bestiality than the uneasy solutions with which sensible people will always be satisfied.

Strauss: I qualified that. I said that I could visualize a man, stemming from absolute degradation and simply having a nobler thing in himself, tending away, as it were, in this way. And I could only say, he acts wisely. If he had the singular qualities ascribed to him, he would not go around and peddle them and say, "Look what I achieved.

However degraded we had to live for centuries in all the various countries, we were not degraded. Surely we were maltreated; all kinds of things were inflicted upon us. Perhaps we deserved it at the hand of God— that is another matter—but not at the hands of the people as such.

I could give you some childhood stories which are illustrative, and older people or people of my age here could also give examples, of what the traditional posture was. I remind you of only one essay which is still worthy of being read by everyone who is interested in this. That is an essay by Ahad Ha'am.

You know who he was? Asher Ginsberg. I mean an essay by Ahad Ha'am which he called "In External Freedom and Internal Slavery," 41 and in which he compared the situation of the Jews in the Russian ghetto to the chief rabbi of France, who was also the head of the Sanhedrin—you know, an institution founded by Napoleon himself. This chief rabbi was highly respectable, with badges and all— you know, like this. And then Ahad Ha'am showed him, on the basis of what this man said—this chief rabbi—that he was a slave, not a free man.

Externally, he was free: he could vote, and do many other things, acquire property, whatever kind he liked. But in his heart he was a slave. Whereas the poorest Polish Jew if he did not happen to be an individual with a particularly lousy character, which can happen in any community was externally a man without rights and in this sense a slave, but he was not a slave in his heart. Questioner: My point of view is this.

Suppose a person who is an average Jew comes to me and says, "On the basis of my latest thinking, I had a real struggle, but I have decided that I can no longer in conscience remain a Jew.

I have decided I will become a positivist, I will suspend judgment, etc. That is another question. You mean to say: is it not morally necessary for certain Jews not to go to synagogue, not to pray, and not to participate in other communal activities? Strauss: Yes, prior to any deeper argumentation, one would have to say yes. I was still brought up in the belief, in a very old-fashioned country. That was what I learned and what I believed until I met, as a student, a professor who told me of his conversion to Christianity.

He was a son of a rabbi. But I would have to admit that he was subjectively sincere, and no calculation entered into it. I cannot say anything more about that.

But I said at the beginning that conversion was always possible. And the question was not simply whether to be a member of a Jewish congregation, with all its implications. Quite a few Jews do not do that—you know what the statistics say about that.

But, nevertheless, the interesting point is this: the Jewish question remains. I gave you the example of those people who became Christian Scientists. I assume—because everyone must be regarded as innocent until proven guilty—that they did it out of conviction. In other words, they did not want just to get rid of a "misfortune," but they were convinced of the truth of Christian Science.

All right, but what happened to them without any doings on their side? While they did not become Christian Scientists in order to get rid of the Jewish disability, they felt a "discrimination" was committed. They are right from their point of view; only it is of no use to get indignant about individual occurrences or symptoms, but one must view the whole situation.

Questioner: In a sense, and I guess with some pain, I really think that I— as a Jew who is very concerned with finding some meaningful answer as to why I remain a Jew, and how to do so—must really repeat the question that was asked by the non-Jew.

I think that you give us really little reason to want positively to remain Jewish. At best, you tell us that an empirical, hard-boiled analysis of the situation—which is your position tonight Strauss: Absolutely and always. Strauss: No! I did not say that.

No, no. Well, I guess really I'm reacting, and I think I'm permitted to react. Strauss: Yes, sure, get it out of your system.

But basically, I think that what you are really suggesting—if you talk to the young people here, of whom I number myself Strauss: Rightly. And I think, and I would hope although this is not my evening to lecture , that I have different reasons for positively wanting to remain a Jew, and for having an answer to in what ways one might be meaningfully different from a Christian.

But partly my difference from you stems from my inability to accept your basic premise. I think at least that now—maybe we are deluded, but Americans in my situation, I think, pretty well feel that— it is a voluntary thing; that your anecdotes are out of date, so to speak; that the Christian Science story has no compelling meaning to people of our generation.

And I think much of your interpretation of the American scene is based on such anecdotal material which I feel is not compelling, although it may be true that it has happened somewhere else and quite recently.

But basically, accepting your premise, I would say that all you offer me positively is to be a religious Zionist. Strauss: Thank you very much for your statement. You misunderstood certain points; but since I know you, I can only say that that must be due to certain defects of my presentation. I came to this country only about twenty- three years ago. I have not figured that out at the moment, but roughly.

You see, what I tried to show is this: I think clarity or honesty about the most important matters is a most important thing. That was my premise. Therefore, I rejected—partly explicitly and partly implicitly, because I could not develop the whole thing—all attempts to interpret the Jewish past in terms of a culture.

Therefore the emptiness of which you complain. In other words, for me the question is: truly either the Torah as understood by our tradition, or, say, unbelief. And I think that is infinitely more important than every cultural interpretation, which is « Chapter » Home TOC Index Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity based on a tacit unbelief and cannot be a substitute for the belief it has given up.

That is, I believe, the basis of our disagreement, as far as I can see it. Let me add one point. I happen to know a bit of the Jewish medieval thinkers, and I know that quite a few very powerful and important changes were made even by them. I believe—and I say this without any disrespect to any orthodox Jew—that it is hard for people, for most Jews today, to believe in verbal inspiration I mean, in verbal inspiration of the Torah , and in the miracles—or most of the miracles— and other things.

My friend Rabbi Harris is not here, but I am in deep sympathy with what he means by a "postcritical Judaism. That is not the point. But a Judaism which is not belief in the "Creator of the world," that has problems running through it. Now I will tell you another story, and this story has a somewhat greater dignity. One of the most outstanding Jews in Germany was Hermann Cohen, the founder of the neo-Kantian school.

That was a lifelong struggle, and what he said is by no means irrelevant, and is, I think, worthy of the study of everyone who is concerned with that. At a certain point in his life he read to an orthodox and educated Jew a brief statement of what he thought to be the essence of Judaism.

And then the old-fashioned, simple man of birth and education said: "And where remains the Creator of the world? Now I do not deny that a man can believe in God without believing in creation, and particularly without believing in creation out of nothing. After all, the Bible itself does not explicitly teach creation out of nothing, as one might see.

But still, Judaism contains the whole notion of man's responsibility and of a final redemption. I mean, you can say: "All right, abolish the personal Messiah, and have only the messianic age"—which is done by most liberal Jews, as you know; and you could add many more of these things. And I would say that it seems to « Chapter » Home TOC Index Why We Remain Jews me that the proper posture of a man who does not believe in that is to enter into this mystery, into this mysterious belief.

And I think he will come out of it—even if he will not come out of it with belief in this—with some understanding he did not have before. One of the deepest Jewish thinkers now, in my private opinion which does not count much in these matters , perhaps the deepest Jewish thinker, is Gershom Scholem of the Hebrew University. Now in his most recent book, which is in German only I suppose it came out in Hebrew, but I do not even remember the German title , 45 he shows to what amazing lengths some of our mystics went by thinking through these beliefs; and then they came out with views to which many of the objections, which many of us would have to such traditional beliefs, would no longer be tenable.

That would be the kind of thing which I would regard as satisfactory. But, I believe, by simply replacing God by the creative genius of the Jewish people, one gives away, one deprives oneself—even if one does not believe—of a source of human understanding.

How much of the unbelief now existing is as much a matter of hearsay, or even of what someone of your profession would call "social pressure"? Now I do not wish to minimize folk dances, Hebrew speaking, and many other things—I do not want to minimize them. But I believe that they cannot possibly take the place of what is most profound in our tradition. I take more serious cases; first, the anti-Judaism of late classical antiquity, when we and incidentally also the Christians were accused by the pagan Romans of standing convicted of hatred of the human race.

I contend that it was a very high compliment. And I will try to prove it. This accusation reflects an undeniable fact.