UPC: 9781503629592 | Cultural Memory in the Present: Emmanuel Levinas s Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought (Paperback)

UPC lookup results for: 9781503629592 | Cultural Memory in the Present: Emmanuel Levinas s Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought (Paperback)

In this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas s Talmudic lectures in Paris Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas s Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas s Talmudic lessons. Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture Kleinberg uses the distinction Levinas presents between God on Our Side and God on God s Side to provide two discrete and at times conflicting approaches to Levinas s Talmudic readings. One is historically situated and argued from our side while the other uses Levinas s Talmudic readings themselves to approach the issues as timeless and derived from God on God s own side. Bringing the two approaches together Kleinberg asks whether the ethical message and moral urgency of Levinas s Talmudic lectures can be extended beyond the texts and beliefs of a chosen people religion or even the seemingly primary unit of the self. Touching on Western philosophy French Enlightenment universalism and the Lithuanian Talmudic tradition Kleinberg provides readers with a boundary-pushing investigation into the origins influences and causes of Levinas s turn to and use of Talmud.