From Sinai to This Day: Hermann Cohen's and Franz Rosenzweig's Recasting of the Giving of the Torah

Abstract

Abstract: The giving of the Torah at Sinai is the cornerstone of Jewish faith in divine revelation. Yet the account in the book of Exodus (19–20) is riddled with questionable descriptions that have puzzled commentators and exegetes from early midrash onward. In the early twentieth century, Hermann Cohen (1842–1918) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) attempted to reconcile the advent of modern philosophy with the bequeathal of Jewish tradition. From their viewpoint, Ex 19–20 raised epistemological difficulties and was fraught with questionable ontological assertions. Yet, since revelation, premised on its classic Jewish formulations, was central to the thought of Cohen and Rosenzweig alike, Sinai could neither be ignored nor silenced; it had to be accommodated. This essay traces the interpretive strategies Cohen and Rosenzweig employed to construct philosophical conceptions of revelation grounded in biblical prooftexts. A close reading of Cohen's The Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism and Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption shows that by choosing alternative biblical prooftexts (Cohen: Deuteronomy; Rosenzweig: Song of Songs), they endorsed the historical impact of Sinai on the Jewish idea of revelation without accepting it as a historically verifiable event. The essay suggests that the reliance of the two philosophers on rabbinic literature to complete their interpretive strategies is the most subtle and illuminating aspect of their reception of Sinaitic revelation.