Hannah M.

Mecaskey/1

Hannah M. Mecaskey
Philosophy 1010
Prof. A. Smith
9 April 2005

Homework #2 Assignment:

1. Kiddush Ha-Shem literally means “sanctification of the Divine Name of God,” or in

other words, recognizing and paying homage to God’s Name. Kiddush Ha-Shem carries
with it the implication of sacrificing oneself and what is dear to one for the sake of
retaining the honor due to God’s Name. Kiddush Ha-Shem has been linked to martyrdom
by the fact that individuals would rather die than defame the Name of God. Jewish
history contains many examples of this, like the incident of Masada. Unlike Isaac’s mere
willingness to die in the Jewish Akedah, Kiddush Ha-Shem is both the willingness and
the action of dying for the preservation of God’s Holy Name. Thus, dying for Kiddush
Ha-Shem essentially is martyrdom.

2. To Maimonides, the highest level of perfection attainable is intellectual perfection,

defined as improvement of the mind. Intellectual perfection is the highest level attainable
because it fulfills Maimonides’ qualifications of being beneficial to body and soul,
unique to human beings to have understanding. Intellectual perfection is not derived from
a social context, but is unique to each person. Maimonides places great emphasis on
intellectual perfection because Maimonides believes that only through intellectual
perfection can man gain cognition of God. Maimonides believes that only when
reasoning individuals receive Providential illumination. Maimonides’ highest concern is
intellectual perfection because only through obtaining Providential illumination can one
truly have cognition of God.

3. The 614th Commandment states that the Jews are forbidden to give Hitler posthumous
victories by denying the existence of God. Fackenheim saw that Hitler wanted to not
only eradicate the Jewish people from the planet, but also the Jewish faith. As God’s
Chosen People, Hitler sought to sway Jewish belief in God, who is the very core of their
tradition. Without God, the Jews no longer have purpose as a special chosen people.
Fackenheim tells the Jews that to deny their faith because of what Hitler has done in the
Shoah will ultimately be accomplishing for him what he could not do in life. Instead of
denying their faith in God, Fackenheim encouraged the Jewish people with his 614th
Commandment to affirm their faith in God- to believe in God despite any opposition to
this belief, like the Shoah (absolute faith). The 614th Commandment is Fackenheim’s
attempt to find the basis for the Problem of Evil with regard to the Shoah, to which he
devoted the last thirty years of him life. Simply put, Fackenheim’s 614th Commandment
demonstrates his belief that despite the Shoah, one should maintain absolute faith in God.
Because of this hopeful approach to the Problem of Evil with regards to the Shoah,
Fackenheim embraces a belief in God rather than denying His existence.

4. The Problem of Evil with regards to the Shoah asks how God can be all-powerful, all-
loving, and allowed such terrible events like the Shoah to have occurred. Any two parts
of this problem can stand alone, but it seems impossible for all three of these aspects to
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be true at once. Richard Rubenstein seeks to answer the Problem of Evil with regards to
the Shoah by saying that God must have died...culturally. Rubenstein believes that it is
impossible to know for certain if God has really died, so he says that “We live in the time
of the death of God,” meaning that the concept of God having the power to stop evil has
died culturally.
Looking at the Problem of Evil in regards to the Shoah, Emil Fackenheim adopts just
the opposite opinion regarding God’s presence. According to Fackenheim, by admitting
that God no longer exists at least socially, Rubenstein has given Hitler his desired victory
by losing his faith in God. Instead of adopting the Death of God Theology like
Rubenstein does, Fackenheim believes the only way to conquer the Problem of Evil with
regards to the Shoah is to affirm faith in God. Fackenheim says that there is no way to
explain why God allowed to Shoah to occur, but he believes that denying God’s
existence as a response to the Shoah is not an answer because it gives Hitler the victory.
Fackenheim believes the only way to prevent Hitler from being conqueror in the Shoah is
to reaffirm absolute faith in God- a faith that endures despite all resistance.
Martin Heidegger interprets Frederick Nietzsche’s idea that “God is dead”1 to mean
something other than Nietzsche’s original meaning that God is a myth and that there is
no Absolute Truth. After being rejected for the priesthood, Heidegger turned from his
Catholic roots to Protestantism, and later abandoned any belief in God like Nietzsche.
Heidegger’s later beliefs in the Greek gods led to his adoption of Nietzsche’s concept of
God’s inexistance2.Heidegger faces the Problem of Evil by interpreting Nietzsche’s
Death of God Theology to mean that God is really “dead, or at least mortally wounded.”3
Because of Heidegger’s clear preference to the Death of God ideology over
acknowledging His existence in dealing with the Problem of Evil, Heidegger’s views
identify more with those of Rubenstein than Fackenheim. Unlike the uncertainty
Rubenstein displays as to the actual death of God, Heidegger is firm in his denial of
God’s existence.
This strong belief in the Death of God Theology carries with it a lot of religious
baggage, such as the need to reconcile the existence of some divinity4, from Heidegger’s
many years of belief in God before his denial of God. The Protestant view of a personal
God remains with Heidegger when dealing with religion, but he claims that another God
of philosophy exists in an impersonal state5. By claiming that the philosophical God (the
omnipotent God claimed by Christianity and Judaism) is dead while allowing a religious
God to survive demonstrates Heidegger’s separation of two characteristics of God’s
nature. By killing off only the omnipotence of God, Heidegger is not really completely
claiming that God is dead, but is saying that He is of a status no higher than that of the
Greek gods6. Without the omnipotence of God, the Problem of Evil concerning horrors
like the Shoah are easily explainable as the responsibility of man

5. Zionism, the belief that the Jewish nation have a right to a homeland of their own
(preferably their ancestral seat), has been a popular idea ever since the Galut in 135 C.E.
In writing Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), Theodor Herzl laid out his solution for the

1
http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000177/index.html. 8 April 2005.
2
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9508/carr.html. 7 April 2005
3
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9508/carr.html. 7 April 2005
4
http://ndpr.icaap.org/content/archives/2004/baldwin-young.html. 7 April 2005.
5
http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000177/index.html. 7 April 2005.
6
http://www.tulance.edu/~michaelz/essays/heidegger/heidegger_and_auschwitz.pdf. 7 April 2005.
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Anti-Semetism problem in Europe: Give the Jews their own state. Herzl believed that all
the reasons the Jews were persecuted and disliked in Europe stemmed from the fact that
they were homeless outsiders. By giving the Jews their own state, Herzl hoped to gain
equality for the Jews in the eyes on the Europeans by becoming a state just like any other
democratic state. For all his dreams and effort, however, Herzl’s attempts to gain the
Jews an ideal state have not rid the world of Anti-Semitism. Today the Jewish nation
does have a state of its own, but because of the controversial location of Israel (being
claimed by both Jew and Palestinian as rightful home), Anti-Semitism is almost as strong
in some parts of the world today as it was in Medieval Europe, even though the Zionist
dream has been realized.

Homework #3:

1. Yes, the essays conveyed the subjects clearly. I enjoyed the amount of detail you put
into many of the essays.

2. The essays with whose subject I am most familiar: 1 and 4

3. To be honest, I didn’t find any of the essays difficult to follow.

4. Essay 4 on Philo Judaeus was extremely interesting. 5 (because it dealt with Aristotle,
one of my favorite philosophers), Maimonides, Death of God Theology, and Problem of
Evil.

5. Essay 2, because I have studied much of that in the past. It was interesting, just not as
new a perceptive as the others gave me.

6. I actually have not read much beyond Biblical philosophy in regards to Jewish
Philosophy. I enjoyed reading Jewish opinion on the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of
Isaac. I would enjoy reading more Old Testament type works.

7. The historical essays were helpful and interesting, especially for those who haven’t
studied Judaism before. Knowing the background gives a better understanding of the
thought behind the work.

8. The lecture material did a nice job of summarizing the main aspects of the text as well
as filling in a few details here and there.

9. Personally, I like looking at maps, because it gives a real perspective of how massive
the Roman Empire was and how important the region of Judea was a “buffer zone.”

10.
a) It might be nice to have the glossary of words in front rather than the back, though
they were explained well in the text.
b) Maybe instead of appendices, the maps and a few others of the same sort could be
incorporated into the text. That would be neat to see.
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c) I think an essay on Jewish thought in the Holy land while the crusades were going on
would be a really neat addition to the text. Does such stuff exist?

11.
Chp.1- In the into to part 1, I think there may be a spelling error. Is it “Kiddush” or
“Kidush”? Pg. 7, line 1 of intro.
Chp. 2-None... very interesting.
Chp. 3-None
Chp. 4-None
Chp. 5-None
Chp. 6-None
Chp. 7- None, enjoyed excerpts.
Chp. 8-None
Chp. 9-None, interesting how history played into the Zionism “conversion” of Herzl
Chp. 10- None
Chp. 11-None
Chp. 12-None
Chp. 13-Don’t know how this happened, but mine’s numbered “XII”, yet I have 13
chapters.

Comments: This was a very informative work. I am able to approach Judaism in a

different way after studying the background thought that lead to modern Judaism.