The Secret of Repetition: Sören Kierkegaard Encounters Jewish Thought

How close does Jewish thought stand to the ideas of Soren Kierkegaard? The answer emerges as the intellectual elective affinity to be drawn from within a constellation that dialogically links the two. To this end three Old Testament tales are taken up that are existentially coloured: the fall of humanity (Kierkegaard – Joseph B. Soloveitchik), the sacrifice of Isaac (Kierkegaard – Max Brod) and the story of Job (Kierkegaard – Abraham J. Heschel). Here, where both Kierkegaard and Jewish thinkers address these narratives, we find that the motif of repetition becomes the focal point.

It is exactly this motif that forms the centre of that which joins Kierkegaard to Jewish thought. With this driving goal having been reached, the tension-filled relationship between Kierkegaard and Jewish thought is then developed.

In my proposal for that session I would focus on the third constellation. Since Abraham J. Heschel evokes growing attention in the academic world, especially in Israel.

The story of Job with his fundamental question of human suffering stands at the centre. Interestingly, theodicy’s circle of problems shifts into the background. With Kierkegaard’s Repetition acting as the point of departure, traces are left that lead us towards Heschel. Here, the voice that is the voice of suffering leads us to the voice of pathos, which is to say, to Heschel’s depth theology of divine pathos. This is developed within the context of hasidic Judaism.