Existentialist Aspects of Yehuda Gellman’s Jewish Thought and Philosophy of Religion

This presentation will examine the Existentialist ideas of Prof. Yehuda Gellman, especially those that appear in his earlier writings. Through this study, it will be suggested that existentialist ideas set the state for Gellman’s philosophy of religion which was to come. Some of the main themes Gellman deals with - existence of God, religious experience, the problem of good and evil, rest on his earlier existentialist ideas, even though this does not remain the main principle behind them. How far goes Gellman alter or revise his approach to these foundational issues in his later thinking in order to speak more to ideas of divine writ and the Torah, chosenness, religious pluralism, and his most recent work on revelation?

This claim will be put forward that Gellman’s earlier philosophical interests and themes were of existentialist nature, and that these must be taken into account when painting a fuller picture of the religious philosophy of Gellman. Through a reading of his earlier works, notably ‘The Fear, the Trembling and the Fire: Kierkegaard and Hasidic Masters on the Binding of Isaac’ I will trace his engagement with existentialist themes and compare to his later writing on revelation ‘This was From God’, and will argue that he remains true to the existentialist themes which were initially at the heart of his writings, even though in parallel he charts new territory with analytic philosophy in conversation with Jewish thought. The question will be posed as to whether and if so, to what extent, Gellman diverted from a more existentialist philosophical approach, and as part of conversation, this study invites a reconsideration of the question as to whether certain elements of existentialism must be sidelined, for example, the centrality of the Subject, or solitude and despair, in favour of a more comprehensive Jewish contemporary philosophy of religion? A further critical question will be raised as to whether it could be said that existentialism has run its course for contemporary Jewish philosophy altogether, and in which ways Gellman’s thinking can help us in such a consideration.