When Paul Tillich was appointed to the Harvard faculty, I chanced to meet Wolfson in the subway. ‘Have you heard about Tillich? Auch a Metzieh! (What a bargain!).’ When on perfectly safe ground, he used Hebrew phrases which made sense only to one at home in rabbinic lore. Once at a Brandeis University banquet (where Anne and I had the pleasure of being his official hosts), he asked: ‘Where is here the ‘somukh le-shulhoney’ (i.e., that which is close to the table)?’ He meant, where is the toilet? But the reference is to the Talmudic adage, ‘Who is rich? He who has the toilet close to his (dining) table (BT. Sabbath 25b).’ It so happened I knew not only the same reference, but also the location of the rest rooms.”1
In this anecdote, we learn how quotation possesses cultural value. Quotations in these types of conversations were often used to discuss everything from quotidian gossip (Auch a Metzieh!) to inquiries regarding biological necessities (‘somukh le-shulhoney’). We know there was an insider-outsider component to such practice. As I have learned over the years, using religiously laden quotations to describe mundane activities serves more than just to put old wine into new bottles. By engaging in such activity, people recognize the power of language to influence the basic destiny of all human beings. Sure, quotations from rabbinic contexts in day-to-day conversation have all but disappeared in secular spaces, but did we in fact lose something more? These quotations allowed someone like Wolfson to use them with unique irony. In his engagement with secular culture, they allowed him simultaneously to elevate and to subvert tradition.
We also know that the use of quotation is not just cultural or philosophical, but is also essential to the vocation and craft of a scholar. Very early in my graduate studies at the University of Chicago, Michael Fishbane invited my wife, Jenny, and me to his home to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. At some
Interested in these questions, under the direction of Paul Mendes-Flohr, I decided to focus my doctoral dissertation on the German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig’s use of Jewish quotations in his magnum opus The Star of Redemption. I studied numerous classical Jewish hermeneutical techniques of quotation and how quotation functioned in literary theory and in the philosophy of language. I also studied the German literary tradition. I wrote about how Rosenzweig engaged both of these methods in his book. After I completed the dissertation and was working as an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech, I started to prepare the manuscript for publication. That same year, Mara Benjamin published her terrific and inspired study, Rosenzweig’s Bible: Reinventing Scripture for Jewish Modernity. Her book addressed many of the same issues in my dissertation and I shared many of her conclusions. I decided not to publish the manuscript so as not to repeat Mara’s already excellent work. While initially this felt like a set-back, it proved to be an important opportunity for me. I am indebted to Mara for our correspondence many years ago. Her insight and encouragement helped me to start thinking about new areas in modern Jewish thought.
After years of university teaching, scholarly inquiry, and writing, I found myself returning to that fateful conversation in Michael Fishbane’s Sukkah. Students (even graduate students) would quote texts they couldn’t possibly know, or claim to know. As a faculty member, I remember reading a dissertation in which the author quoted Hebrew texts in translation where no translations existed. When I spoke to the student, I discovered that not only did they not know Hebrew, but they simply lifted the quote from a secondary source and cited it as a primary one. Unmoved by academic protocol, let alone decorum, the student asserted that quoting served an aesthetic function. After numerous conversations like this one, I returned to a simple question: Why are quotations so important to thought, wisdom, and knowledge? Even after I moved into the
There are many people I need to thank for helping to get me to this point. Research for this book benefited from the support of several institutions, including the University of Chicago, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Virginia Tech, and the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies.
I want to thank Brill Press and especially the series director, Elliot Wolfson, without whose scholarship and support this book could not exist. I am also grateful for the anonymous readers’ helpful criticism, guidance, and encouragement. Any mistakes that remain are entirely my own.
I owe enormous thanks to the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies, in whose intellectual and spiritual environment I have learned so much and thrived these past ten years. I owe a special debt of gratitude to the institute’s executive director and my longtime friend, Heather Miller Rubens, for her leadership and unwavering support. And I must thank my dear colleagues, current and former, for making it such a privilege and a joy to come to work each day. In the former category, I would like to thank: Fatimah Fanusie, John Rivera, Angela Cava, Catey Yost, Laura Urban, Alisha Tatum, Christine Gallagher, Christine Krieger, Melissa Zieve, Zeyneb Sayilgan, and Matthew Taylor; in the latter, I would like to thank the institute’s founding director, Chris Leighton, as well as Rosann Catalano, Ilyse Kramer, Bobby Waddail, and Homayra Ziad.
Over the years, I have benefited from numerous conversations and encounters. Many years ago, Benjamin Pollock graciously read my entire dissertation and offered me invaluable insight and encouragement, including the important suggestion that I engage more with the sources. I am also grateful for my correspondence with William Hallo before he passed away. Over a beer together, he encouraged me to think about how German—more particularly the German of Goethe—played a role in Rosenzweig’s Star. I also want to thank Orr Scharf for his friendship and sage counsel. I have learned so much from his work.
While I was at Virginia Tech, this project benefited from many conversations and friendships. In particular, I want to thank Brian Britt and Ananda Abeysakara for our many forays into post-secularism, post-structuralism, and all matters related the to the methodological study of religion. Brian is also a critical and astute reader of Walter Benjamin’s works. I have learned much from his scholarship and am grateful for our friendship. I also want to thank several of my former colleagues at Virginia Tech: Aaron Ansell, Matthew Gabriele, Erika Meintner, Nicole Ni, Cooper Harriss, Rachel Scott, Peter Schmitthenner, Steve Trost, and Grace Kao.
Paul Mendes-Flohr was my Doctorvater, but he has also become my dear friend. His mentorship embodied the words of the poet George Elliot: “Those
Here in Baltimore, I want to thank Harold Morales and Paola Pascual-Ferra for helping me think about my conclusion. They read and critiqued an earlier version of it. Kenneth Moss read several sections and offered his ever-astute insight.
Years ago, Martin Kavka edited an article of mine and offered me advice that remains front and center in my mind when I write. James T. Robinson has generously supported my work since my time in Swift Hall. And I must thank my Swift Hall classmates Cass Fisher, Jerome Copulsky, and Alexander van der Haven for their enduring friendship, erudition, and much-needed humor. Special thanks to John Rivera and, especially, Jennifer Quijano Sax for their care in copyediting this long tome.
And where do I even begin to thank my family for all their patience, guidance, and support through the ups and downs of writing? “The Sages taught: There are three partners in the creation of a person: The Holy One, their father and their mother” (Niddah 31a). I cannot imagine more loving and supportive parents than my own, Andé and Phil. The same goes for my siblings, Scott and Alyssa, their loving spouses, Allie and Frank, and their amazing children, Landon, Wylie, Rory, and Eva. Over the years, I have enjoyed the pleasure of spending summers in the town of Castine on the coast of Maine with my loving in-laws, Jean and Carlos, my wife’s siblings, Lisa and Sasha, their spouses, Kirk and Joel, and their wonderful children, April, Ezra, Cyrus, Noah, Owen, Elspeth, and Graham. Those long early morning walks around the peninsula brought me the calm and clarity I needed to fine-tune and finish this project.
I presented my research at numerous conferences and benefited from many conversations with colleagues. An earlier version of chapter three was published as “Walter Benjamin’s Karl Kraus: Negation, Quotation and Jewish Identity,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 32,3 (2014). Part of chapter four was published as “Das geflügelte Wort: Franz Rosenzweig as Post-Goethekenner,” Naharaim: Zeitschrift für deutsche-jüdische Literatur und Kulturgeschichte, 5 (2011). Part of chapter five was published as “Judaism, Experience, and the Secularizing of Life: Revisiting Walter Benjamin’s Montage of Quotation,” Religions 13.11 (2022). Part of chapter six was published as “Wissenschaft and Jewish Thought: Ismar Elbogen’s Early Influence on Franz Rosenzweig,” Pardes: Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e.V. 24 (2018).
Finally, this book is dedicated to three people. In describing the divine as “fountain of life,” the Psalmist states “in your light we shall see light.” While the source and emanation of that light may be from something truly beyond and ineffable, I know that I am able to see it through my love for Jenny, Sarai, and Avishai. In her poem “Resignation,” Nikki Giovanni expressed this love perfectly—I love you “because I don’t want it any other way.”
Nahum N. Glatzer, “Harry Austryn Wolfson: Philosopher,” in The Memoirs of Nahum N. Glatzer, ed. Michael Fishbane and Judith Glatzer Wechsler (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1997), 110.