A Way In Between? Avrom Sutzkever Between Historical and Transhistorical Perspective
(2022) The Possibility of a New Way after Shoah by Bullets: Religion, Ethics, Politics — Location: Vilnius (online) (24.November.2022)
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- Each in their own way, both the transhistorical and historical perspective offer an answer to the caesura of the Shoah. Both of the perspectives make it clear that it is no option to remain passive and silent after this violent rupture. The transhistorical perspective understands the remembering and continuation of the chain of proper names (Toledo) as the ultimate protest against the annihilation of the Shoah, whereas Fackenheim’s historical perspective goes even further and calls for a flesh-and-blood answer within history to respond to‘the commanding voice of Auschwitz’. The Shoah as catastrophe, thus sharpens the aporia of messianism. After the Shoah, passively waiting for the coming of the messianic age no longer seems correct; the horror calls for a reaction in the here and now, an ‘active messianism’. From this point of view, Fackenheim delivered a serious critique of the transhistorical perspective. Is it enough to remember the proper names and continue the succession of toledot? Shouldn’t the Jewish people actively protest the annihilation of the Shoah? While differently, both the historical and transhistorical answer oppose Vilna Gaon’s understanding of teshuva as silence. After the rupture of the Shoah, an answer, either historically or transhistorically, is needed. I want to present a ‘way in between’ transhistorical and historical perspective through the poetry of Avrom Sutzkever. I will address how his poetry forms an answer to the rupture of the Shoah, an answer that is at once historical and transhistorical, while it embodies in a special way Gaon's understanding of teshuva as silence.
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De Doncker, E. (2022). A Way In Between? Avrom Sutzkever Between Historical and Transhistorical Perspective. The Possibility of a New Way after Shoah by Bullets: Religion, Ethics, Politics, Vilnius (online). https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/100309