ATHENS IN JERUSALEM.

ON THE DEFINITION OF JEWISH PHILOSOPHY

The question what Jewish philosophy is and why this field is important
for the academic study of philosophy has often been a subject of debate.
The academic study of Jewish philosophy started in the middle of the
nineteenth century with the pioneering work of Manuel Joel and
Salomon Munk. It was the early period of die Wissenschaft des
Judentums. Since these early years in the academic study of Jewish philos-
ophers, scholars have debated on what is Jewish and what is philosoph-
ical in Jewish philosophy. This discussion focuses on questions like: is
Jewish philosophy a philosophy of Judaism, is it a specifically Jewish
contribution to the debate on philosophical problems, is it a part of
philosophy of religion or is it broader, is it philosophizing by Jews, is
there really such a thing as Jewish philosophy, is the term not an internal
contradiction?
In reply to these questions some scholars argue that philosophy
entered Judaism as an external influence which is not essentially typical
of Judaism. Julius Guttmann, for instance, opens his standard work Die
Philosophie des Judentums from 1933 with the claim that the Jewish
people did not arrive at philosophical thought by its own efforts, but
received philosophy externally. He believes that the history of Jewish
philosophy is the history of the reception of an alien body of thought,
which was then merged into Jewish thought. I Eliezer Schweid and
Aviezer Ravitzky also state that Jewish philosophy is the result of
external influences. According to Ravitzky, as long as Jewish thought
remains within what he calls the framework of the rabbinic tradition,
regardless of the era, no attempt is undertaken to formulate it in univer-
sally valid terms. The internal certainty of the particular tradition is suffi-
cient. Jewish philosophy only develops in confrontation with the outside
world, as in the Hellenistic period in Alexandria, in the Iberian peninsula

I J. Guttmann, Die Philosophie desJudentums, Munchen 1933, 9. In the revised and ex-
panded Hebrew version of this book, Ha-philosophia shel ha-yahadut Uerusalem 1951)
and in its English translation, Philosophies of Judaism (New York 1964) Guttmann's posi-
tion is unchanged.

S. Berger, M. Brocke and 1. Zwiep (eds.), Zutot 2.001, I07-III.

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in the Middle Ages, in Italy during the Renaissance, in Germany in the

modern era. Schweid adds that Jewish philosophy in the Middle Ages
lags behind developments in non-Jewish philosophy, because it is the
result of external influences, and so is anachronistic.'
This description of the matter is problematic. Against Schweid's
statement about the anachronistic character of Jewish philosophy, I
mention only Mendelssohn's innovative contribution to contemporary
philosophy and his original discussion of Judaism within the framework
of Enlightenment thought, and the innovative aspect of Hermann
Cohen's concept of Judaism in the context of his critical discussion of
Kant's legacy. Other examples are easily found, for instance Levinas.
They show that Schweid's claim, if in fact it applies to the Middle Ages, is
not valid in the modern era.
Second, the claim that philosophy is essentially alien to Judaism
reflects an essentialism which is hard to prove. It is true that Jewish
philosophy developed in the Diaspora, and that Judaism in Palestine
during the First and Second Temple Period does not have philosophers
like the pre-Socratics, Plato, or Aristotle. But these facts do not warrant
the conclusion that philosophy is essentially alien to Judaism (Guttman,
Schweid), nor that Jewish thought does not need philosophy as long as it
remains within the framework of the rabbinic tradition (Ravitzky). Such
a claim confuses inception with essence, and forgets that rabbinic
thought in Antiquity did not develop in a vacuum. Rabbinic thought in
Antiquity, too, shows Greek and other influences which made construc-
tive contributions to it.3 The germination and flowering of Jewish philos-
ophy can also be interpreted as the rise and development of something
that was already present, potentially or essentially. Ravitzky's claim that
rabbinic thought does not need philosophy as long as it remians within its
own domain seems at odds with the Talmud's words on what we can call
the architecture of knowledge. The passage in question reads: 'Raba said,

2 A. Ravitzky, History and Faith. Studies in Jewish philosophy. Amsterdam Studies in

Jewish Thought 2, Amsterdam 1996, 4f.; E. Sehweid, Toledot ha-philosophia ha-yehudit
mi-Rasag 'ad Rambam, Jerusalem 1970, 3ff.
1 See, among others, Ph. Alexander, '"Quid Athenis et Hierosolymis?" Rabbinic Mid-
rash and Hermeneutics in the Graeeo-Roman World', in P.R. Davies, R.T. Write, eds, A
Tribute to Geza Vermes. Essays on Jewish and Christian Literature and History, Sheffield
1990, 101-124. There are many reference books in this field, such as The Cambridge His-
tory of Judaism, vol. 2, ed. by W:D. Davies and L. Finkelstein, Cambridge 1989.

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when a man is led to judgement [in the next world], he will be asked: did
you understand one thing from the other, havanat davar mi-tokh davar'.
Rashi says of this last question: to understand one thing from the other is
knowledge, da'at.4 The principle of understanding one thing from the
other corresponds to what, for brevity's sake and in general terms, I call
the analytical method or the principle of deduction. So this passage illus-
trates the important place which the analytical method for acquiring
knowledge occupies in (traditional) rabbinic Judaism: one of the six
questions which you will be asked in the next world is whether you have
acquired knowledge by means of the deductive principle. The passage
also illustrates that, at the very least, a methodological affinity can be
observed between rabbinic thought and philosophy. And this observation
renders problematic the statement that rabbinic thought does not need
philosophy. In addition, the statement shows a striking contrast with
Maimonides' assertion in Mishneh Torah that study of the Torah not only
includes oral and written doctrine but also logic, hermeneutical princi-
ples for the interpretation of the Torah, physics, and metaphysics.5
To press home my objection I follow Zev Harvey in referring to a
Greek philosopher who lived shortly after Alexander the Great.
Theophrastus of Eresus, a pupil of Plato and Aristotle, was head of the
Peripatetic School after Aristotle's death. In his work Peri Eusebeias,
which has been passed down in fragments, Theophrastus includes a
description of the sacrificial rites of the Jews, and in passing remarks that
Jews are philosophoi to genos, philosophers by nature, who spend all day
discussing the deity, and at night study the stars and say prayers.6
According to this ancient fragment of text, which comes from Athens and
not from Jerusalem, philosophy is not alien to Jews and Judaism.

4 bT Shabo 3 Ta, and Rashi ad loc.: havanat davar mi-tokh davar haynu da'at.
\ Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Talmud Torah i.II and Hilchot Yesode ha-To-
rah iv.13; Moreh ha-Nevukhim iii,51, ed. Y. Kapach, 3 vols, Jerusalem 1972., 674£.; The
Guide of the Perplexed, trans/. S. Pines, Chicago 1963,619.
6 See fragment 2.6.1 of Peri Eusebeias, in Theophrastus of Eresus. Sources for his Life,

Writings, Thought, and Influence, ed. and trans/. by W.W. Fortenbaugh e.a., Leiden 1993"
vo/. 2., 42.2. See also W.Z. Harvey, 'Sa'adiah, Mendelssohn, and the Theophrastus Thesis:
Paradigms of Jewish Enlightenment. A Response to Raphael Jospe', in R. Jospe, ed., Para-
digms in Jewish Philosophy, Cranbury 1997,60-69.

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What do Athens and Jerusalem have in common?? Unlike Tertullian,

who was one of the first to ask this question, Jewish philosophy sees
Athens and Jerusalem as symbols of Greek and Jewish thought. The two
are often presented as each other's opposites. There is a great deal of
debate in modern Jewish philosophy on the status of Jerusalem, and on
what Athens and Jerusalem have in common. My position in this discus-
sion is that it is wrong to see Athens and Jerusalem as essentially opposed.
Instead, we do better to characterize the field of study as Athens in
Jerusalem and Jerusalem in Athens. In Jewish philosophy Athens is an
essential and integral part of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem of Athens.
Jewish philosophy is, first of all, the critical articulation of Jewish
culture, that is, its heritage and modes of actual manifestation. I use the
terms critique and critical here in the classic sense of 'giving account of',
as we find in, e.g., in Plato and Kant. As a critique of Jewish culture,
Jewish philosophy is part, indeed, of philosophy proper. The exposition
and evaluation of Jewish culture is an attempt to give an account of the
Jewish ways of life and ways of thinking in all their varieties throughout
the ages. And the 'tribune' before which Judaism is evaluated is that of
reason. This definition is a knowing wink to the Golden Age of reason in
German-Jewish philosophy, as it commenced with Moses Mendelssohn
and found its culmination and its temporary closure in Hermann Cohen.
Mendelssohn, Samuel Hirsch, Salomon Formstecher, Salomon Stein-
heim, Nachman Krochmal, Manuel Joel, Cohen, and their contempo-
raries, attempted to offer a critical account of Judaism according to
contemporary philosophical standards and terminology. This critique
was aimed at elucidating both the Jewish value and the philosophical
validity of Jewish philosophy. After Cohen German-Jewish philosophy
shifted away from its critical idealistic foundation. Franz Rosenzweig
and other dialogicists distanced themselves from the reliable and rigorous
tradition of critical idealism and, remarkably, reverted to a pre-critical
kind of thinking with its supposed duality of thought and perception,
inner and outer world, reason and revelation, and the primacy of
language over thought.
The question of giving account in terms of reason is what Athens and
Jerusalem have in common. In Mendelssohn and in Cohen, for instance,

7 Cf. Tertullian, De prescrlptlOne haereticorum, vn.9: Quid ergo Athenis et

Hierosolymis. Tertulliani opera, pars I, Turnholti 1954,193.

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this part of their philosophy is focused on the exposition of the Jewish

tradition in the context of the religion of reason. But Judaism is obviously
more than religion, Jewish culture is more comprehensive than the
rabbinic tradition. And so, generally speaking, this part of Jewish philos-
ophy involves more than the clarification of this tradition.
In the second place Jewish philosophy includes the contribution to
contemporary philosophy, 'Jerusalem in Athens'. In Mendelssohn this
contribution includes the Phiidon, the Morgenstunden, the discussion of
the separation of Church and State in his Jerusalem, and Mendelssohn's
criticism of what Lessing and others saw as the necessary connection
between Enlightenment thought and Christianity. This criticism emerges
from the discussion between Mendelssohn and Lessing on the concept of
Lessing's Das Christentum der Vernunft, on which Lessing had been
working since 1751-3 and on which he apparently debated with
Mendelssohn at the beginning (1754) of their friendship,8 and from the
discussion between Mendelssohn and Lavater. In Hermann Cohen this
part involves for instance his view of the connection between Judaism
and socialism, or his criticism of Kant's separation of law and morality.
Finally, the observations which I have made above on the nature of
our field of studies and the various problems that are related to its defini-
tion are based on the presupposition that Jewish philosophy is part of
philosophy proper and, consequently, moves along with the trends and
developments of philosophy.

Reinier Munk
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

8 According to Mendelssohn's Morgenstunden, GS II, 369 (JubA III.2) 133, and An die
Freunde Lessings (1786), GS III, 6 (JubA lIb 189) Mendelssohn and Lessing discussed (a
draft version of) Das Christentum der Vernunft in the early years of their friendeship, which
took a start in 1754. Mendelssohn and Lessing both refer to this discussion in their corre-
spondence; d. Mendelssohn's letter to Lessing of February 1st In4, and Lessing's to Men-
delssohn d.d. May 1st 1774, in GS V 192-193 194-195 (JubA XII.2, 39-41,46-47). See also
A. Altmann, Moses Mende/ssohns Friihschriften zur Metaphysik, Tiibingen 1969, 2ooff.

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