Teshuva as Philosophical View on History: The Problem of Silence
(2025) Morality on the Edge: Modernity and the Holocaust in Lithuania — ISBN: [9783643915207], 201-258, published
Files
proofsbookvilnius-7-65.pdf
preprint - proofs
Open Access - Adobe PDF
- 4.58 MB
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- The volume concludes with Ellen De Doncker’s chapter “Teshuva as Philosophical View on History: The Problem of Silence” in which the author elaborates two stances of Judaism towards history, using the Jewish concept of ‘teshuva’ (return, repentance). The starting point of her research is the aporia of messianism: can one await the Coming, or is there, neces- sitated by the horror of the Shoah, a call for an “active messianism” wit- hin history? This aporia is elaborated under the prism of the Vilna Gaon’s understanding of teshuva as silence. Yet, it seems that silence is untenable after the Shoah, which calls for a loud reaction. To this, two Jewish, phi- losophical perspectives on the history after the Shoah are presented, using the concept of teshuva. Both perspectives, in their own way, call for a loud reply to counter the annihilation of the Shoah. The transhistorical perspective, embodied by Rosenzweig and Chalier, on the one hand, views teshuva as a form of messianic anticipation. The historical perspective, embodied by Fackenheim, on the other hand, links teshuva directly with what he calls the “614th commandment” – to not forget the Holocaust – that must take place within history. Finally, De Doncker presents the Vilnian Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever and how, through his poetry, he presents an answer in the middle between the historical and transhistorical perspectives. These answers show the diversity and resilience of post-Holocaust Judaism.
- Affiliations
Citations
De Doncker, E. (2025). Teshuva as Philosophical View on History: The Problem of Silence. In Saldukaitytė, Jolanta (ed.), Morality on the Edge: Modernity and the Holocaust in Lithuania (pp. 201-258). LIT Verlag. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/245787