Academic (peer-reviewed) Articles by Nadav S. Berman
Religions, 2024
This article is part of the Special Issue: Theism in the Language of Humanism: Reincarnations of ... more This article is part of the Special Issue: Theism in the Language of Humanism: Reincarnations of the Transcendent God in the Secular Subject, Edited by Ronen Pinkas and Elad Lapidot
Abstract
Love is a keystone in Franz Rosenzweig’s philosophy, which reaffirmed Judaism’s emphasis on vital, relational love. What “love” exactly means, however, is controversial. In the Christian context, love is often denoted by Agape—which implies (1) that “God is Love”, (2) that love is universal, impartial, and rather endorses the sinner; and (3) that humans should practice and emulate such love. The ultimate expression of Agape is the commandment to love one’s enemy, which is rooted in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44). This essay considers Rosenzweig’s understanding of Agape, at the implicit level (since the coining by Anders Nygren of Christian love as “Agape” became widespread only after Rosenzweig’s death). This essay opens by contextualizing Rosenzweig within political theology, in particular vis-à-vis Schmitt. Secondly, it considers Rosenzweig’s approach to Agape in the sense of divine love, and in the sense of the love of enemy. Concerning divine love, Rosenzweig criticized theological Agapism (‘God is love’) which equates God with love, and hence makes love into a dogma or noun, rather than an action or verb, thus depriving divinity’s personal loving agency. Concerning the agapic love of enemy, Rosenzweig discredits its Christian version (for being imperialistic), and advocates its Jewish version of accepting divine judgement. His surprising advocacy of the love of enemies may result from Rosenzweig’s opposition to Gnosticism, which excludes the ‘good God’ from involvement in the physical world. The essay’s conclusion reflects on the role of Agape and its pragmatist versions in the post-secular world of the 21st century and conveys Rosenzweig’s pragmatist contribution in this regard, of recognizing the significance of worldliness and togetherness.
![Research paper thumbnail of “Chosenness, Agapism, and the Search for Moderation between Nationhood and Universalism” [in Hebrew], Da‘at 92 (2022-2024), pp. 7-36](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/116859400/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Da'at, 2024
The idea of collective Chosenness (nivḥarut) was interpreted by Jewish thinkers in two initial wa... more The idea of collective Chosenness (nivḥarut) was interpreted by Jewish thinkers in two initial ways: Chosenness as a divine gift which is somehow encrypted in the body of each Jewish individual, and chosenness as a normatively acquired (rather than inherited) property. Numerous attempts were made to defend these approaches, and to mediate between them. This paper examine the idea of chosenness from a novel perspective, by interrogating it with its mirror concept, namely the Christian Agape which mandates the love of and the care for every human being, regardless of their nationality, merit, ethnicity, or ‘race’. The agapic stance has its origin in the Hebrew Bible, and was robustly developed in the Christian tradition with its distinctive universal trajectory. The significance of Agape - which is almost absent from the research on Jewish Thought vis-à-vis Christianity - to the issue of national election, is the agapic emphasis on the election of humanity as a whole. Juxtaposing chosenness with agapism sheds new light on the old issue of chosenness, in several ways: First, by demonstrating that not only narrow chosenness has its moral pitfalls; radical forms of Agape too have their moral prices. Secondly, the contextualization of chosenness vis-a-vis Agape invites a search for middle ways that balance between the two polarities. Thirdly, given that there are moderations between chosenness and Agape in both Judaism and Christianity, establishing the conceptual axis ‘Chosenness-Agapism’ may enrich Jewish-Christian interfaith discourse, thus contributing to the ability of Jewish and Christian interlocutors to better understand how their Abrahamic fellow challenges their tradition in a way which is vital to the pursuit of their own tradition’s equilibrium.
The Journal of Religion, 2022
This article suggests that certain interpretive trajectories within Jewish tradition – both halak... more This article suggests that certain interpretive trajectories within Jewish tradition – both halakhic (nomos) and aggadic (narrative) – can be illuminated vis-a-vis classical American pragmatism (CAP). Contrary to a prevalent belief, Peirce, James, and Dewey were neither anti-metaphysical nor anti-traditional. They contended, in different ways, that the ‘pragmatic maxim’ (PM) – “truth is what works” in James’s phrasing – is not a narrowly instrumentalist truth test. The PM rather implies that ideas and beliefs (philosophical and religious alike) should be examined against their worldly consequences. After a clarification of this relational idea in its pragmatist philosophical context, and an introductory sketch of the appearances of the PM in Jewish tradition, the article examines the PM within the thought of Rabbi Ḥayyim Hirschensohn (RḤH; 1857-1935). The article runs as follows: Section 1 presents CAP and clarifies what the PM is. Section 2 offers a bird’s eye mapping of the application of the PM within Jewish tradition. Section 3 briefs RḤH’s intellectual biography and elaborates on his pragmatist premises and his application of the PM. Rather than conceiving divine commandments as an arbitrary dictate, RḤH viewed them as purposive, relational, and as constituted and reaffirmed by individual and collective human agreements. Finally, the article reflects on the theological-intellectual prerequisites for the application of the PM.
Journal of Law and Religion, 2022
Over recent decades, several global tech giants have gained enormous power while at the same time... more Over recent decades, several global tech giants have gained enormous power while at the same time generating various disputes with their end-users, local governments, and regulators. We propose that the Jewish concept of covenant can help the above parties, legal scholars, and wider society, in addressing this complex legal reality. We present the challenge of disequilibrium between the above four parties against the main points of conflict: the requirement of customer consent; clear contractual provisions upon entry; options for reasonable customer exit; limitations on the platform’s ability to exercise unilateral termination; profile-based discrimination; and liability for mere intermediation. We introduce the biblical concept of covenant, and we review its unfolding in Jewish tradition. Further, we conceptualize three main covenantal principles: (1) responsibility—God and humans are both conceived as moral agents; (2) reciprocity—God as a caring law giver, open to human appeals; and (3) reasonability—divine instruction as initially intelligible. We demonstrate how the latter principle of explainability is exercised in the biblical law narratives and how the story of Balaam stresses the significance of moral agency that cannot hide behind “mere intermediary” claims. In light of this analysis, we revisit the relationship between tech giants and tech users to demonstrate how covenantality offers novel ways to conceptualize the noted conflicts between the parties.
Journal of Jewish Ethics, 2022
This article reconsiders a specific mishnah—Avot 5:16—which praises a disinterested love, while d... more This article reconsiders a specific mishnah—Avot 5:16—which praises a disinterested love, while denouncing expressions of interested love. By referring to the alleged “love” of Amnon and Tamar, Avot 5:16 equates sexuality and interestedness with incest and rape. This exegetical choice is surprising, given the pro-natal and “carnal” trajectory of biblical and talmudic traditions, which can be described as proto-pragmatist in this regard. The paper opens by defining pragmatic interestedness vis-à-vis disinterestedness, while reviewing the prevalence of disinterestedness in modern philosophy. Section 2 examines mishnah Avot 5:16 and its advocacy of disinterested ethic, while suggesting its ideational affiliation with Platonic love and with the Christian Agape. Section 3 argues that within normative-laden Jewish tradition, as well as in classical American pragmatism, we find an embodied and integrative philosophical anthropology (or pragmatic interestedness), which deeply challenges the disinterestedness paradigm of Avot 5:16. Section 4 concludes with some reflections on the relevance of this study for the research of Jewish thought and the Humanities.
Naharaim, 2022
This article presents Franz Rosenzweig's concept of redemption as a vehicle for raising some impo... more This article presents Franz Rosenzweig's concept of redemption as a vehicle for raising some important questions for confronting the contemporary movement of Transhumanism. The upshot of our discussion is located in the existential questions asked, following a philosophical comparison of Rosenzweig's religious and philosophical commitment to human life in its most robust form, with Transhumanism's scientistic vision. To do so, the article first discusses some technoscientistic assumptions of Transhumanism, showing that it presumes what was once a core principle of German Idealism, the identity of reason and being, against which Rosenzweig rebelled. Then, the article turns to examine Rosenzweig's humanistic redemptive vision and its emphasis on the corporeal, the temporal, and the worldly (rather than the purely spiritual, the apocalyptic, and the other-worldly). The conclusion makes explicit the ways in which Rosenzweig's redemptive vision provides a contrasting model to the one set forth by Transhumanism.
Jewish Law Association Studies, 2020
Techno-ethics is the area in the philosophy of technology which deals with emerging robotic and d... more Techno-ethics is the area in the philosophy of technology which deals with emerging robotic and digital AI technologies. In the last decade, a new techno-ethical challenge has emerged: Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS), defensive and offensive (the article deals only with the latter). Such AI-operated lethal machines of various forms (aerial, marine, continental) raise substantial ethical concerns. Interestingly, the topic of AWS was almost not treated in Jewish law and its research. This article thus proposes an introductory ethical-halakhic perspective on AWS, in the Israeli context.
The article has seven sections. Section 1 defines AWS and the main ethical concerns it evokes, while providing elementary definitions and distinctions. §2 locates AWS within the realm of Jewish laws of war (hilkhot-ẓava), which recognize the right for self-defense, as well as the status of universally accepted moral norms. §3 unfolds pragmatic ethical premises of a humane techno-ethics, which are required for the identifying AWS as a moral question: I. Relationality; II. Technology is not (completely) neutral; III. The fallaciousness of transhumanism. It is argued that these premises are compatible with halakhic tradition. §4 investigates the question of the morality of AWS, within the field of military AI ethics. It is clarified why the standard categories of war-ethics (ad bello, in bellum) do not capture the singular ethical problem of AWS, which pertains to the operation of military means, rather than their human targets. It is argued that reductive perception of the human mind is misleading about the feasibility of ‘ethical robots’, capable of independent moral discretion.
To provide a thick examination of human agency from the perspective of Jewish tradition, §5 explores two stories from the biblical book of Samuel (the murder of Nob’s priests and of Uriah). The lessons about the significance of moral agency within the pubic-political military sphere are made explicit, as well as the possible costs resulting from the loss of human agency in the case of AWS. Given that realpolitik considerations are basic in halakhah, §6 considers some possible contemporary socio-political implications of the AWS, that may risk the sustainability of the democratic project. §7 concludes by pointing out humane contributions of Jewish law to contemporary techno-ethics.
![Research paper thumbnail of “The Rejection of Radical-Foundationalism and -Skepticism: Pragmatic Belief in God in Eliezer Berkovits’s Thought” [in Hebrew], Jewish Thought 1 (2019), pp. 201-246](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/59914407/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Faith has many aspects. One of them is whether absolute logical proof for God’s existence is a pr... more Faith has many aspects. One of them is whether absolute logical proof for God’s existence is a prerequisite for the proper establishment and individual acceptance of a religious system. The treatment of this question, examined here in the Jewish context of Rabbi Prof. Eliezer Berkovits, has been strongly influenced in the modern era by the radical foundationalism and radical skepticism of Descartes, who rooted in the Western mind the notion that religion and religious issues are “all or nothing” questions. Cartesianism, which surprisingly became the basis of modern secularism, was criticized by the classical American pragmatists. Peirce, James and Dewey all rejected the attempt to achieve infallible absolute knowledge, as well as the presumptuousness of establishing such a knowledge by means of casting Cartesian hyperbolic doubt. They advocated an alternative approach which was more holistic and humane.
This paper lays out Descartes’s approach and the pragmatists’ critique. Despite the place that pragmatic considerations hold in Jewish tradition, some thinkers reject the relevance of these ideas. Yet Berkovits’s thought suggest a different path. He rejected Descartes’ radical skepticism and his radical foundationalism, in favor of a moderate foundationalism, which allows for a belief in God alongside constructive doubts. Similar to Peirce’s conception of the fixation of belief, Berkovits views local doubts (distinct from the hyperbolic doubt) as necessary for thought. Berkovits’s understanding of the biblical human-divine encounter, following Rosenzweig, Buber, and Heschel, is conceptualized here as “encounter theology”. Berkovits criticizes the propositionalist attempts to prove God’s existence logically, as well as the presumptuousness of basing religious belief on the teleological world-order. However, Berkovits’s conception of the ‘caring God’ is not provable, and thus defined as a pragmatic ‘postulate’. The article concludes by considering Berkovits’s “encounter theology”. In contrast to the approach described by Haym Soloveitchik, of halakhic stringency and lack of subjective experience of God’s face, Berkovits’s approach is dialogic through and through.
In classical American pragmatism, fallibilism refers to the conception of truth as an ongoing pro... more In classical American pragmatism, fallibilism refers to the conception of truth as an ongoing process of improving human knowledge that is nevertheless susceptible to error. This paper traces appearances of fallibilism in Jewish thought in general, and particularly in the halakhic thought of Eliezer Berkovits. Berkovits recognizes the human condition’s persistent mutability, which he sees as characterizing the ongoing effort to interpret and apply halakhah in shifting historical and social contexts as Torat Ḥayyim. In the conclusion of the article, broader questions and observations are raised regarding Jewish tradition, fallibility, and modernity, and the interaction between Judaism and pragmatism in the history of ideas.
![Research paper thumbnail of “The Challenge of the ‘Caring’ God: A. J. Heschel’s ‘Theology of Pathos’ in light of Eliezer Berkovits’s Critique” [in Hebrew], Zehuyot 8 (2017), pp. 43-60](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/53398186/thumbnails/1.jpg)
This article examines A.J. Heschel’s “Theology of pathos” in light of the critique Eliezer Berkov... more This article examines A.J. Heschel’s “Theology of pathos” in light of the critique Eliezer Berkovits raised against it. Heschel’s theology of pathos is the notion of God as the “most moved mover”, who cares deeply for humans, and thus highly influencing their prophetic motivation for human-social improvement. Berkovits, expressing the negative-transcendent theology of Maimonides, assessed that Heschel’s theology of pathos is not systematic, is anthropomorphic, and reflects a foreign Christian influence. However, when checking Berkovits’s own views as a thinker, it turns out that he formulated some immanent theological notions that were overlapping those of Heschel, for example in attributing God the personal trait of caring. Surprisingly, most Heschel’s scholars did not consider this point. This riddle addressed here in two ways: (1) Psychological and Social, on which I understand Berkovits’s critique as a way of coping with his own religious perplexities, and in a wider sense, it is asserted that trans-denominational critique may be a discursive opportunity for mutual corrigibility. (2) Theological, since Heschel and Berkovits indeed faced a similar theological challenge, of rejecting any description of God as anthropomorphism. I thus offer a constructive theological argument for providing a justification to the immanent theologies of both Heschel and Berkovits.
![Research paper thumbnail of “R. Ḥayyim Hirschensohn’s Beliefs about Death and Immortality as Tested by his Halakhic decision making” [in Hebrew], Daat 83 (2017), pp. 337-359](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/110146002/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Da’at, 2017
This paper traces two contradicting beliefs about death and immortality in the writings of Rabbi ... more This paper traces two contradicting beliefs about death and immortality in the writings of Rabbi Hayyim Hirschensohn, and examines these opposing beliefs in his Halakhic ruling, in the case of Autopsies. The paper opens by conceptualizing two possible attitudes regarding the relation between this-world and the ʽother-world’, and by analyzing two main beliefs regarding death and immortality in their relation to the body-spirit distinction (the naturalistic and the spiritualistic approach). It demonstrates how Hirschensohn was holding these two different views. The paper then moves to examine whether his halakhic ruling may help us in understanding which approach was Hirschensohn’s favorable belief, by investigating his halakhic ruling regarding autopsies. Hirschensohn permits to perform such surgeries, however subject to some halakhic limitations. The paper concludes that the naturalistic belief regarding death appears to be the more dominant one in his thought. Finally, I point out a few consequences of this paper, for addressing some contemporary ethical dilemmas regarding human corpses.
Academic (peer-reviewed) Book Chapters by Nadav S. Berman
In: Zion and Diaspora: Past, Present, Future, ed. Joseph (Yossi) Turner and Ari Ackerman (Jerusalem: Carmel 2023), pp. 321-356, 2023
This book-chapter investigates the pragmatist Zionist thought of Mordecai M. Kaplan, and consider... more This book-chapter investigates the pragmatist Zionist thought of Mordecai M. Kaplan, and considers its holistic and pluralistic properties, in contrast with monist and fundamentalist approaches to Zionism.
The Spirit of Conscious Capitalism: Contributions of World Religions and Spiritualities, ed. Michel Dion and Moses Pava (Switzerland: Springer), 2022
This chapter does not presume to outline a new economic theory, nor a novel perspective on Jewish... more This chapter does not presume to outline a new economic theory, nor a novel perspective on Jewish approaches to economy. Rather, it suggests the concept of pragmatic interestedness (PI) as means for thinking on the search for conscious or moral forms of capitalism. In short, pragmatic interestedness means that having interests is basic to human nature, and that interestedness is or can be non-egoistic and pro-social. This chapter proposes that PI, which has a significant role in normative Jewish tradition, can contribute to the articulation of conscious capitalism.
The chapter first defines what pragmatic interestedness is, and its opposite, namely disinterestedness (DI), which demands total impartiality. The second section considers the influential Christian concept of Agape or universal and egalitarian love, which is arguably at tension with eros and particular commitments (and with PI in this regard). It is argued that prominent modern philosophies secularize the Agape, especially Karl Marx’s Communism and Peter Singer’s Sentientism, in a way that marginalizes PI. The third section explores the appearance of pragmatic interestedness within rabbinic Jewish tradition, by (i) presenting the complicated duality of the concept of interest, (ii) emphasizing the recognition of human needs and interests in Judaism and (iii) highlighting Jewish sensitivity to the differences between various spheres of human commitment, and (iv) the role of market and economic considerations in Jewish tradition. The fourth section reflects more broadly on how PI may contribute to the conception of conscious or humane capitalism.
The Philosophy of Eliezer Schweid, ed. Yehoyada Amir and Joseph (Yossi) Turner, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Carmel), 2020
Scientific Editing and Encyclopedia Entries by Nadav S. Berman
Forthcoming 2025-26 with the Eshkolot Jewish Studies Series by Herzog College and the World Union... more Forthcoming 2025-26 with the Eshkolot Jewish Studies Series by Herzog College and the World Union of Jewish Studies
Forthcoming with the Eshkolot Jewish Studies Series by Herzog College and the World Union of Jewi... more Forthcoming with the Eshkolot Jewish Studies Series by Herzog College and the World Union of Jewish Studies
To be published with the Idra Press (Editor: Avraham Elqayam) in Fall 2025
Religia, 2023
ויליאם ג'יימס, 'מנגנון ההיגב וסוגיית האמונה-באל', תרגום: רועי לידסקי, עריכה מדעית: נדב ש' ברמן, ר... more ויליאם ג'יימס, 'מנגנון ההיגב וסוגיית האמונה-באל', תרגום: רועי לידסקי, עריכה מדעית: נדב ש' ברמן, רליגיה 6 (2023), עמ' 223—243
The English original was published in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, 2024
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Academic (peer-reviewed) Articles by Nadav S. Berman
Abstract
Love is a keystone in Franz Rosenzweig’s philosophy, which reaffirmed Judaism’s emphasis on vital, relational love. What “love” exactly means, however, is controversial. In the Christian context, love is often denoted by Agape—which implies (1) that “God is Love”, (2) that love is universal, impartial, and rather endorses the sinner; and (3) that humans should practice and emulate such love. The ultimate expression of Agape is the commandment to love one’s enemy, which is rooted in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44). This essay considers Rosenzweig’s understanding of Agape, at the implicit level (since the coining by Anders Nygren of Christian love as “Agape” became widespread only after Rosenzweig’s death). This essay opens by contextualizing Rosenzweig within political theology, in particular vis-à-vis Schmitt. Secondly, it considers Rosenzweig’s approach to Agape in the sense of divine love, and in the sense of the love of enemy. Concerning divine love, Rosenzweig criticized theological Agapism (‘God is love’) which equates God with love, and hence makes love into a dogma or noun, rather than an action or verb, thus depriving divinity’s personal loving agency. Concerning the agapic love of enemy, Rosenzweig discredits its Christian version (for being imperialistic), and advocates its Jewish version of accepting divine judgement. His surprising advocacy of the love of enemies may result from Rosenzweig’s opposition to Gnosticism, which excludes the ‘good God’ from involvement in the physical world. The essay’s conclusion reflects on the role of Agape and its pragmatist versions in the post-secular world of the 21st century and conveys Rosenzweig’s pragmatist contribution in this regard, of recognizing the significance of worldliness and togetherness.
The article has seven sections. Section 1 defines AWS and the main ethical concerns it evokes, while providing elementary definitions and distinctions. §2 locates AWS within the realm of Jewish laws of war (hilkhot-ẓava), which recognize the right for self-defense, as well as the status of universally accepted moral norms. §3 unfolds pragmatic ethical premises of a humane techno-ethics, which are required for the identifying AWS as a moral question: I. Relationality; II. Technology is not (completely) neutral; III. The fallaciousness of transhumanism. It is argued that these premises are compatible with halakhic tradition. §4 investigates the question of the morality of AWS, within the field of military AI ethics. It is clarified why the standard categories of war-ethics (ad bello, in bellum) do not capture the singular ethical problem of AWS, which pertains to the operation of military means, rather than their human targets. It is argued that reductive perception of the human mind is misleading about the feasibility of ‘ethical robots’, capable of independent moral discretion.
To provide a thick examination of human agency from the perspective of Jewish tradition, §5 explores two stories from the biblical book of Samuel (the murder of Nob’s priests and of Uriah). The lessons about the significance of moral agency within the pubic-political military sphere are made explicit, as well as the possible costs resulting from the loss of human agency in the case of AWS. Given that realpolitik considerations are basic in halakhah, §6 considers some possible contemporary socio-political implications of the AWS, that may risk the sustainability of the democratic project. §7 concludes by pointing out humane contributions of Jewish law to contemporary techno-ethics.
This paper lays out Descartes’s approach and the pragmatists’ critique. Despite the place that pragmatic considerations hold in Jewish tradition, some thinkers reject the relevance of these ideas. Yet Berkovits’s thought suggest a different path. He rejected Descartes’ radical skepticism and his radical foundationalism, in favor of a moderate foundationalism, which allows for a belief in God alongside constructive doubts. Similar to Peirce’s conception of the fixation of belief, Berkovits views local doubts (distinct from the hyperbolic doubt) as necessary for thought. Berkovits’s understanding of the biblical human-divine encounter, following Rosenzweig, Buber, and Heschel, is conceptualized here as “encounter theology”. Berkovits criticizes the propositionalist attempts to prove God’s existence logically, as well as the presumptuousness of basing religious belief on the teleological world-order. However, Berkovits’s conception of the ‘caring God’ is not provable, and thus defined as a pragmatic ‘postulate’. The article concludes by considering Berkovits’s “encounter theology”. In contrast to the approach described by Haym Soloveitchik, of halakhic stringency and lack of subjective experience of God’s face, Berkovits’s approach is dialogic through and through.
Academic (peer-reviewed) Book Chapters by Nadav S. Berman
The chapter first defines what pragmatic interestedness is, and its opposite, namely disinterestedness (DI), which demands total impartiality. The second section considers the influential Christian concept of Agape or universal and egalitarian love, which is arguably at tension with eros and particular commitments (and with PI in this regard). It is argued that prominent modern philosophies secularize the Agape, especially Karl Marx’s Communism and Peter Singer’s Sentientism, in a way that marginalizes PI. The third section explores the appearance of pragmatic interestedness within rabbinic Jewish tradition, by (i) presenting the complicated duality of the concept of interest, (ii) emphasizing the recognition of human needs and interests in Judaism and (iii) highlighting Jewish sensitivity to the differences between various spheres of human commitment, and (iv) the role of market and economic considerations in Jewish tradition. The fourth section reflects more broadly on how PI may contribute to the conception of conscious or humane capitalism.
Scientific Editing and Encyclopedia Entries by Nadav S. Berman
The English original was published in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
See: https://www.degruyter.com/database/EBR/entry/key_b2a0b8c3-666a-4d12-94ee-25eaf2093716/html
If you do not have an institutional access to the EBR yet wish to read receive a digital copy, contact me by email
Abstract
Love is a keystone in Franz Rosenzweig’s philosophy, which reaffirmed Judaism’s emphasis on vital, relational love. What “love” exactly means, however, is controversial. In the Christian context, love is often denoted by Agape—which implies (1) that “God is Love”, (2) that love is universal, impartial, and rather endorses the sinner; and (3) that humans should practice and emulate such love. The ultimate expression of Agape is the commandment to love one’s enemy, which is rooted in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44). This essay considers Rosenzweig’s understanding of Agape, at the implicit level (since the coining by Anders Nygren of Christian love as “Agape” became widespread only after Rosenzweig’s death). This essay opens by contextualizing Rosenzweig within political theology, in particular vis-à-vis Schmitt. Secondly, it considers Rosenzweig’s approach to Agape in the sense of divine love, and in the sense of the love of enemy. Concerning divine love, Rosenzweig criticized theological Agapism (‘God is love’) which equates God with love, and hence makes love into a dogma or noun, rather than an action or verb, thus depriving divinity’s personal loving agency. Concerning the agapic love of enemy, Rosenzweig discredits its Christian version (for being imperialistic), and advocates its Jewish version of accepting divine judgement. His surprising advocacy of the love of enemies may result from Rosenzweig’s opposition to Gnosticism, which excludes the ‘good God’ from involvement in the physical world. The essay’s conclusion reflects on the role of Agape and its pragmatist versions in the post-secular world of the 21st century and conveys Rosenzweig’s pragmatist contribution in this regard, of recognizing the significance of worldliness and togetherness.
The article has seven sections. Section 1 defines AWS and the main ethical concerns it evokes, while providing elementary definitions and distinctions. §2 locates AWS within the realm of Jewish laws of war (hilkhot-ẓava), which recognize the right for self-defense, as well as the status of universally accepted moral norms. §3 unfolds pragmatic ethical premises of a humane techno-ethics, which are required for the identifying AWS as a moral question: I. Relationality; II. Technology is not (completely) neutral; III. The fallaciousness of transhumanism. It is argued that these premises are compatible with halakhic tradition. §4 investigates the question of the morality of AWS, within the field of military AI ethics. It is clarified why the standard categories of war-ethics (ad bello, in bellum) do not capture the singular ethical problem of AWS, which pertains to the operation of military means, rather than their human targets. It is argued that reductive perception of the human mind is misleading about the feasibility of ‘ethical robots’, capable of independent moral discretion.
To provide a thick examination of human agency from the perspective of Jewish tradition, §5 explores two stories from the biblical book of Samuel (the murder of Nob’s priests and of Uriah). The lessons about the significance of moral agency within the pubic-political military sphere are made explicit, as well as the possible costs resulting from the loss of human agency in the case of AWS. Given that realpolitik considerations are basic in halakhah, §6 considers some possible contemporary socio-political implications of the AWS, that may risk the sustainability of the democratic project. §7 concludes by pointing out humane contributions of Jewish law to contemporary techno-ethics.
This paper lays out Descartes’s approach and the pragmatists’ critique. Despite the place that pragmatic considerations hold in Jewish tradition, some thinkers reject the relevance of these ideas. Yet Berkovits’s thought suggest a different path. He rejected Descartes’ radical skepticism and his radical foundationalism, in favor of a moderate foundationalism, which allows for a belief in God alongside constructive doubts. Similar to Peirce’s conception of the fixation of belief, Berkovits views local doubts (distinct from the hyperbolic doubt) as necessary for thought. Berkovits’s understanding of the biblical human-divine encounter, following Rosenzweig, Buber, and Heschel, is conceptualized here as “encounter theology”. Berkovits criticizes the propositionalist attempts to prove God’s existence logically, as well as the presumptuousness of basing religious belief on the teleological world-order. However, Berkovits’s conception of the ‘caring God’ is not provable, and thus defined as a pragmatic ‘postulate’. The article concludes by considering Berkovits’s “encounter theology”. In contrast to the approach described by Haym Soloveitchik, of halakhic stringency and lack of subjective experience of God’s face, Berkovits’s approach is dialogic through and through.
The chapter first defines what pragmatic interestedness is, and its opposite, namely disinterestedness (DI), which demands total impartiality. The second section considers the influential Christian concept of Agape or universal and egalitarian love, which is arguably at tension with eros and particular commitments (and with PI in this regard). It is argued that prominent modern philosophies secularize the Agape, especially Karl Marx’s Communism and Peter Singer’s Sentientism, in a way that marginalizes PI. The third section explores the appearance of pragmatic interestedness within rabbinic Jewish tradition, by (i) presenting the complicated duality of the concept of interest, (ii) emphasizing the recognition of human needs and interests in Judaism and (iii) highlighting Jewish sensitivity to the differences between various spheres of human commitment, and (iv) the role of market and economic considerations in Jewish tradition. The fourth section reflects more broadly on how PI may contribute to the conception of conscious or humane capitalism.
The English original was published in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
See: https://www.degruyter.com/database/EBR/entry/key_b2a0b8c3-666a-4d12-94ee-25eaf2093716/html
If you do not have an institutional access to the EBR yet wish to read receive a digital copy, contact me by email
The difficulty, however, lies in Eidelstein’s employment of Kantian disinterestedness, for it is in fact seriously dissonant with the worthy pragmatic educational purposes that Eidelstein elaborates in the second half of his book. Pragmatism is opposed to disinterestedness in that it stresses the entanglement of fact and value, viewing interests as playing a necessary and productive part in moral motivation and action, while Kantian deontology eliminates consequentialism from the moral scope. While for pragmatists (for example John Dewey’s Democracy and Education) the human creature is holistically conceived, as made of flesh and blood and not only as ‘spirit’, Kant maintained the dualistic Cartesian tradition.
This tension calls for a rigorous address. Since Eidelstein’s book is making an important claim about the place open-mindedness has within the Judaism, it must be noted that the disinterestedness of a presumed human ‘self’ is also not easily compatible with the dominant voices in normative Jewish tradition. The Bible does not deal to a large extent with the ‘self’ or with mental intentions, and its conception of the human is not categorically different in the Talmudic corpus. On the contrary, the rabbis frequently endorse pragmatic and ‘external’ reasons, as the motivational basis for action. The kind of purism associated with disinterestedness (as in Mishnah Avot 5:18-19) is barely represented in rabbinic thought.
Openness and Faith: In Search of Cultural Education Here and Now is nevertheless an important contribution to the intellectual discourse over the individual and public virtues. In our ever-more segregated and fenced-off world, there is an urgency to delineating the virtue of openness, hoping that Ecclesiastes is right in contending that “No person has power over the spirit [רוח] to retain it” (8:8). But to make Eidelstein’s point about openness in the second half of his book educationally viable, there a need for a pragmatic refinement of the philosophical anthropology in its first half. One way or the other, Openness and Faith is praiseworthy for its articulateness and depth, which invites its readers to an open-minded conversation about the concept of openness.
למעוניינים בעותק דיגיטלי, נא לפנות אלי בדוא"ל
nadav.berman at mail.huji.ac.il
As the UCSIA/IJS Chair for Jewish-Christian Relations 2023-24, I will also give a reading seminar at Antwerp on March 7th, 2024, titled "Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber on Divine and Human Love". For registration please visit the link below.
Source: Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, "The Binding of the Sons: Day of Remembrance 1941", in idem, Between Yesterday and Tomorrow: Sermons (Oxford: The East and West Library 1945), pp. 25-30
For the online publication on Yashar magazine, see: https://bit.ly/Yashar116
Special thanks to R' Dov Berkovits, and to the Yashar magazine Editors, Dr. Itay Marienberg-Milikowsky, Dr. Tafat HaCohen-Bick, and Dr. Yoel Kretzmer-Raziel.
The argument concerning Marx as a secularizer of Agape was previously published in English on section 2 of my following article: https://www.academia.edu/45032807/_Interest_Disinterestedness_and_Pragmatic_Interestedness_Jewish_Contributions_to_the_Search_for_a_Moral_Economic_Vision_
In the present essay, it is further suggested that Marx's critique of Capitalist exploitation implicitly opposes the strict Agapic demand for a non-reciprocal deed. To Marx's mind, earthly (rather than otherworldly) reward and flourishing are indispensable.
In this essay, I briefly explore the intellectual import of these linguistic differences and transformations. I argue that in comparison to the English term "Humanities", the Hebrew term מדעי הרוח, as it came to be understood against the dominance of some dualistic paradigms (Cartesian and others), is complicated: the 'man qua spirit' paradigm is insufficiently accounting for the material, corporeal, and social aspects which are essential for a pragmatic address of the problems of humans as members of this world.
I thus point out the integrative philosophical attitudes of the classical American pragmatists, as a platform for moving towards a 'humanization' of the Israeli Humanities. Facing the prominence of some nature-hostile thinkers (such as Kierkegaard) in Israel's intellectual landscape, I point out Hans Jonas's thought as one which has the potential to promote a more nature- and society-friendly trajectory. It is also Jonas's critique of Gnosticism, which has the potential to help in addressing the idea of world-hostility from a metaphysical angle.
I then argue that pragmatism may help in challenging the prevalent notion of viewing the Humanities as a disinterested type of knowledge and learning. Rather, I contend, it is the very idea of interestedness which grounds our deepest moral commitments. The love of wisdom, too, is an interest, and could thus be acknowledged as legitimate.
All these philosophical considerations, I propose, may help in better addressing the decline of the Humanities in Israel.
This article argues that if we want to allow our children and next generations human life , the use of technology in education shoul be restricted to human-enhancing purposes, and reject 'technolutions' (e.g., VR glasses). Follwing Neil Postman and the OECD 2015 report, I further claim that the over-use of technology in schools is not promoting learning itself.
1. On War and Peace in Israel and in Jewish Tradition: A Conversation with Prof. Alexander Yakobson (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), September 9th 2024, at 10am AZ time / 8pm Israel time
2. Jews, Arabs, Judaism, and Islam under a Christian Canopy: A Conversation with Prof. Uriya Shavit (Tel Aviv University), Sept 16, 2024, at 10am AZ time / 8pm Israel time
3. Political Theology within the Jewish-Israeli Case: A Conversation with Prof. Annabel Herzog (University of Haifa), Monday, Sept 23, 2024, at 10am AZ time / 8pm Israel time
For details and registration, visit: https://asuevents.asu.edu/event/state-state-israel-political-theology-within-jewish-israeli-case-conversation-annabel-herzog?id=0
For an appetizer (in Hebrew) of some of the ideas discussed in this class, see the attached file. To register for this class, visit the link below.