Eliezer Berkovits

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Eliezer Berkovits (1950)

Eliezer Berkovits (born 8. September 1908 in Oradea ( Oradea ), died on 25. August 1992 in Jerusalem ) was an American and Israeli rabbis and religious philosopher.

Life

Eliezer Berkovits grew up in Transylvania ( Austria-Hungary ). After studying yeshiva in Großwardein, Klausenburg , Preßburg and Frankfurt am Main, he moved to Berlin and continued his studies at the local rabbinical seminary Esriel Hildesheimer . He studied philosophy at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin and received his doctorate in 1933. In 1934 he was ordained a rabbi. Until 1939 he served as rabbi at the Pestalozzistraße synagogue (Berlin); the experience of disenfranchisement and persecution of German Jewry in Nazi Germany shaped him. He emigrated to Great Britain and was rabbi in Leeds from 1940 to 1946 , then from 1946 to 1950 rabbi in Sydney, Australia . From 1950 to 1958 he held a rabbinical position in Boston. He then worked as a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew Theological College in Skokie , Illinois. Most of his theological and religious-philosophical works were written here. In 1975 he immigrated to Israel and then lived in Jerusalem.

Teaching

Berkovits saw in the Holocaust the failure of western civilization and thus also of Christianity, a "spiritual bankruptcy". As representatives of Orthodox Judaism put it, the Holocaust is not a punishment from God for sinful people. “No: it was absolutely wrong. An injustice favored by God. "

Berkovits referred to the traditional term Hebrew הֶסְתֵר פָּנִים hester panim , the "hiding of the (divine) face." In order to make human freedom possible, God hides himself in history. He endures the sinner and thus surrenders the sacrifice. “Hence our conclusion: He who demands justice from God must give up man; whoever expects love and mercy from God in addition to justice must come to terms with suffering. "

In the article Crisis and Faith , Berkovits described the 1974 Holocaust as the absolute low point of the divine plan with the world, in which the “exile” of the divine Shekhina had reached its extreme increase; the establishment of the State of Israel as a national, but not (yet) cosmic remedy corresponds to this. Berkovits criticized the secular as well as the religious Israelis because Israel is not a society shaped by the Torah, but the religious have failed to adapt the Halacha to the present.

Web links

literature

  • Steven T. Katz, Shlomo Biderman, Gershon Greenberg: Wrestling with God: Jewish Theological Responses during and after the Holocaust . Oxford University Press, New York 2007, pp. 462-489.
  • Karl Erich Grözinger : Jewish thinking: theology - philosophy - mysticism. Volume 4: Zionism and the Shoah . Campus, Frankfurt / New York 2015, pp. 588–608.

Publications (selection)

  • What is the Talmud? , 3rd edition, Ner tamid, Frankfurt am Main 1963.
  • God, Man and History: a Jewish Interpretation (New York 1959), Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village 1979.
  • Faith after the Holocaust (New York 1973) Maggid Books, New Milford 2019.
  • Major Themes in Modern Philosophies of Judaism , 2nd edition, Ktav, New York 1975.
  • Crisis and Faith. In: Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought (1974), pp. 5-19.
  • With God in Hell. Judaism in the Ghettos and Death Camps . Sanhedrin Press, New York 1979.
  • Not in Heaven. The Nature and Function of Halakha , Ktav, New York 1983.
  • The Jewish Woman in Time and Torah , Ktav, New York 1990.

Web links

Commons : Eliezer Berkovits  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christian Wiese: Art. Eliezer Berkovits
  2. ↑ Eliezer Berkovits: Faith after the Holocaust , p. 106, quoted here. based on: Karl Erich Grözinger: Zionism and Schoah , Frankfurt / New York 2015, p. 599.
  3. ^ Karl Erich Grözinger: Zionism and Schoah , Frankfurt / New York 2015, p. 605 f.
personal data
SURNAME Berkovits, Eliezer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American and Israeli rabbi and religious philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH September 8, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Großwardein ( Oradea )
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 1992
Place of death Jerusalem