Emil L. Fackenheim

Sharon Portnoff, Ph.D. (2005) in Jewish Philosophy, Jewish Theological Seminary, is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Pomona College. She has delivered papers on Primo Levi, Dante, Louis Zukofsky and Emil L. Fackenheim, and her poems have appeared in Midstream and Chants. She is currently working on a book, tentatively titled The Interface of Fiction and Reality: Primo Levi’s Use of Dante’s Inferno in Se questo è un uomo.James A. Diamond, Ph.D. (1999) in Philosophy, University of Toronto, LL.M. (1979), New York University School of Law, is the Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies and Director of the Friedberg Genizah Project, at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. His publications include Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment, (winner of Canadian Jewish Book Award, 2002), Converts, Heretics and Lepers: Maimonides and the Outsider, and articles in such journals as AJS Review, Jewish History, Jewish Quarterly Review, Jewish Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy and Theology, Philosophy and Literature and Vetus Testamentum.Martin D. Yaffe, Ph.D. (1968) in Philosophy, Claremont Graduate University, is Professor of Philosophy and Religion Studies at University of North Texas. He is the author of Shylock and the Jewish Question and Judaism and Environmental Ethics: A Reader, co-translator of Aquinas’ Literal Exposition on the Book of Job and translator of Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise, the philosophical founding-document of both modern biblical criticism and modern liberal democracy. He is currently completing a translation from the German of Leo Strauss’s essays on Moses Mendelssohn, originally contained in the Jubilee Edition of Mendelssohn’s works (1929ff.), of which Strauss was a co-editor.

“The overall aim of the book, ‘to provide a forum through which to introduce Fackenheim’s though to a broader audience’ (5), is well served by the scope and depth of the essays gathered here, a good many of which were written by former students of Fackenheim for whom their teacher’s legacy clearly provides a continuing provocation.” Philip G. Ziegler, in Studies in Religion, Vol. 41, No. 3

• CONTENTSForeword by Elie WieselIntroductory Remarks Sharon PortnoffPART ONE FACKENHEIM THEN AND NOWFackenheim in the Fifties John BurbidgeBetween Halle and Jerusalem Michael OppenheimFackenheim’s Hermeneutical Circle Michael L. MorganThought Going to School with Life? Fackenheim’s Last Philosophical Testament Benjamin PollockFackenheim’s Paradoxical 614th Commandment: Some Personal Reflections Martin J. PlaxPART TWO THE PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSION OF FACKENHEIM’S THOUGHTHistoricism and Revelation in Emil Fackenheim’s Self-Distancing from Leo Strauss Martin D. YaffeLeo Strauss’s Challenge to Emil Fackenheim: Heidegger, Radical Historicism, and Diabolical Evil Kenneth Hart GreenFackenheim’s Hegelian Return to Contingency Sharon PortnoffJudaism and the Tragic Vision: Emil Fackenheim and the Problem of Dirty Hands Sam AjzenstatA Time for Emil Fackenheim, A Time for Baruch Spinoza Heidi Morrison RavvenPART THREE THE RELIGIOUS DIMENSION OF FACKENHEIM’S THOUGHTRabbi Fackenheim and Philosophical Encounter with Elijah’s Wager James A. DiamondTikkun in Fackenheim’s Leben-Denken as a Trace of Lurianic Kabbalah Aubrey L. GlazerIn Search of a Meaningful Theology of the Holocaust: Reflections on Fackenheim’s 614th Commandment Lionel RubinoffEmil Fackenheim and the Levitical Order of Thinking Michael Kigel