Leo Baeck - First Draft

When I looked at Dr. Adler’s questions about Leo Baeck, I got the impression that most of them referred to the article, which I had not copied.... so I decided to start “digesting” what I had read by first summarizing it and then by trying to fill in some of the questions of the “Worksheet on Modern Jewish Thinkers” we got on our first class. Please, join me and add / correct this first draft...

Summary of Borowitz (pp. 53-73)

• After Cohen had established the identity between Judaism and ethical religion, Jewish thinkers became increasingly troubled by this concept. If Judaism is only ethical-monotheism, why should Jews keep their Jewishness when other ethical-monotheist religions existed, especially those that were not attacked with the same degree of prejudice that Judaism was? It against this background (and keeping this question always in mind) that we need to understand Baeck’s thought.
  
• Baeck’s thought came as a development of Cohen’s theology (Cohen himself thought of Baeck as his most promising disciple), but Baeck expanded Cohen’s concept of Judaism as a religion based on reason alone, and it incorporated some sort of existential experience, spiritual connection that could not be explained using only rational concepts (this is what Baeck called "religious consciousness"). Borowitz is very clear that Cohen would not have liked Baeck’s new approach if he were alive at the time.
  
• Baeck developed his theology with these two basic premises, human ethics and religious consciousness, in permanent dialectical tension.
  
• “For Baeck, ethics without this mysterious grounding in God is mere moralism” (Borowitz, 59), but the spiritual aspect of religion, if not firmly grounded in ethical behavior, might lead to extreme religious behavior, one that it’s either fanatic or focuses only on the individual-God relationship, ignoring the rest of the world.
• Baeck gave more attention to the way people understood God that to the definition of what God exactly is. He said that people had a concept of a personal God and experienced God personally - on the other hand, he tried to avoid the risk of the anthropomorphism that permeates the belief in a personal God to be taken too seriously. "This destroys God's transcendence, thereby vitiating the authority by which the ethical comes to us as a categorical demand". [ Here I think there is a connection with the point Joel has raised about Cohen (American (Liberal?) Jews taking the concept of autonomy to the extreme where there is no ethical imperative dictated by religion) ] According to Baeck, that paradox was resolved by making the personal (i.e. close) God the same that created the world and acts through world history (i.e. distant).
• A sentence that reminded me of Jocee's sermon last month: "God's anger is a way of expressing our sense that ethics must be uncompromising. Genuine morality always involves a protest against, and resistance to, indecency." (Borowitz, 61) For Baeck, there is a choice to be made between good and evil, and no compromise could be reached regarding that choice; immorality corrupted human dignity and should not be tolerated.
  
• Baeck's understanding of an ethical God prevented, in his view, of attributing any particularistic attributes to God - therefore, he negated the traditional Jewish view of the "elected people". On the other hand, because the Jews were the first to comprehend the religious idea of ethical monotheism, they became God's "ambassadors", responsible for spreading this concept all around the world. In my reading, what Baeck is saying is that the Jews are the "chosen people" not because God chose us, but because we chose God. [In my reading, though, there seems to be also some value judgment on his view that other people are more prone to relapse into paganism than the Jews - see the first lines of Borowitz, p. 69]
  
• In line with his view of the Jewish mission to spread ethical-monotheism, Baeck believed that we should seriously engage in poselytization.
  
• [pages 67-68 of Borowitz dealth with Baeck's polemic against Christianity, but I could not understand it well, I hope someone else did, or that the additional article clarifies this issue]
• For Baeck, the word "commandment" refers only to rules that come directly from God, i.e. ethical commandments. The word "law" refers to rules legislated by the rabbis, and subject to human review. "In any tension between commandment and Jewish law, ethics has priority since it is the essence of Judaism." (Borowitz, 69)
• While Baeck allows changes in the law if there is a conflict with ethics, he prefers to keep traditions unchanged, so not to disrupt the unity of Jewish practice around the world.
• Borowitz evaluation of Baeck: (1) Borowitz seems to be very critical of Baeck's position on Jewish particularism. He asks a question that has personally challenged me for quite some time: "If the essence of Judaism is available in direct, intellectual form, are we not ethically required to spare future generations of Jews the possible suffering in perpetuating our people?" [ While I rationally understand that this question can be a direct result of a Jewish lack of particularity, my intuition tells me that the second component of Baeck's theology (religious consciousness) is what answers the challenge raised by Borowitz. While there is nothing superior on being Jewish, this is who we are, and this is how we feel! Because Judaism is not only reason-based, those of us who decided to remain Jewish despite all the persecutions (Baeck among us!) dit it because rational arguments will not convince us to give up our identity . Baeck understood that our religious experience is not rational only - on the other hand, this might be a bigger challenge for Cohen, for whom reason played a much more preponderant role]
• (2) The second challenge that Borowitz raises to Baeck is that his theology was adequate to a generation that was desperate for integration and to common-grounds with Gentile friends, but it become obsolete to a generation that, having been accepted into the broader society, is in search of its ancestral roots. Before, liberal Jews needed a theology that allowed them to get rid of some of the burdens imposed by religion; now, what is needed is a theology that gives liberal Jews a reason to keep some of the mitzvot [Again, I'd have to disagree with Borowitz - maybe that's because I am always comparing Baeck to Cohen, the only other modern Jewish philosopher we studied so far. Baeck's view of reason and Jewish passion in dialectic relationship certainly allows for the sort of religious revival that we have experienced in the last decades (note that the 1st edition of Borowitz's book is from 83, the 2nd. from 95). Again, in Baeck's view Judaism is not only reason and, even though there might be few rational arguments to keep some of the commandments, people feel that by keeping them more strongly connect to their religious consciousness.]