Abstract
In this review, I analyze, in regard to Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism, how the crisis of the holy in contemporary culture is not formed directly by the effect of modernity on traditional religion but rather by the defensive steps of the religion itself in protection of its religious identity. In other words, I show how the contemporary concern for religious identity renders contemporary spirituality—the living relationship with God—problematic. In the course of this analysis, I focus first upon the thought of R. A. I. Kook as well as upon contemporary trends in Islam and Hinduism. In the second part of the essay, drawing especially upon contemporary Jewish thought and the Frankfurt School critique of modern capitalist society, I show how both postmodern theory and “negative theology” can be resources for the contemporary renewal of spirituality.
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Notes
While R. Kook and his work are well known in Israeli rabbinical and scholarly circles (his entry in the National Library catalog has 243 items), he has been less well known in the USA. This has recently been remedied with the publication of Yehudah Mirsky’s outstanding biography (Mirsky 2014).
Scholars have identified two somewhat distinct accounts of the Withdrawal in R. Luria’s writings. The alternative account, which R. Kook seems to have adopted, speaks not of an “empty space” but of a “material residue” of divine light—the Reshimu. See below.
See the sources cited in Fischer (2007b).
This nickname or nom de plume, was formed from the first letters of each of his names in Hebrew: SHimon, Gershon Rosenberg.
For an expanded account of Shagar's thought, see Feldmann Kaye (2019).
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Fischer, S. Review of The Crisis of the Holy. Cont Jewry 40, 109–120 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-020-09329-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-020-09329-z