244:("the revolution of nihilism") as opposed to the spirit of the Kabbalah and weak Messianism in Scholem and Benjamin's work. As Scholem writes, "One may say, perhaps, the Messianic idea is the real anti-existentialist idea," referring to the style of thinking propagated based on Heidegger's work, which comes to bear the name 'existentialism.' Their discussion may be read as an esoteric Jewish mystical alternative to Martin Heidegger's discourse on being, will, and becoming whose ascendancy in esteem during the coming decades would parallel and correlate with the rise of the
188:"On Language as Such, and the Language of Man," is effectively the inaugural document in this discussion, which arises from the meeting at the villa in Seeshaupt. It commemorates this moment by opening the field of concerns that would constitute the esoteric terrain of Scholem's research over the following sixty years, and also had a determining influence on Benjamin's development up to his early death. The "On Language" involves a deep reading of the first chapters of
257:
communicated. And it was the
Kabbalists who regarded rational thinking as a linguistic process…the creative impetus is of a linguistic nature, that, therefore, an infinite multitude of languages suffuses the world, all structures we discover in it have a tendency toward language." The text, in this sense, "appears as a texture woven from the Name of God."
139:
countryside. The two arrived at the villa soaked to the bone. "By the time we arrived we still had half an hour's walk in the pouring rain ahead of us." There they met Dora Pollak née
Kellner, whose husband—the son of a wealthy Jewish industrialist, journalist Max Pollak—was according to an obviously
65:
The essay that became "On
Language" began in draft-form as an eight-page letter that Benjamin wrote to Scholem in the autumn of 1916, though he had to break off in the midst of composition halfway through writing the piece. He gave the completed essay to Scholem in December 1916. Scholem was nineteen
180:
as the language of Jewish settlements in
Palestine: a provision that found its realization in the years to come. His daughter, soon-to-be Benjamin's wife, becomes a translator and actor in Jewish history in her own right. Her patrimony is mentioned here in passing insofar as it bears on the theme of
106:
or the performance of miracles) though
Benjamin—as Scholem later hints—eschews the schematic framework of emanationism frequently adopted in theurgic writings as well as the transcendent authority of scripture in his contribution to this field. The esoteric series of writings which begins here are a
53:," written from exile in 1932–1933. The piece "On Language" constitutes the earliest major artifact of Benjamin's thought, preceded only by a few speeches that he'd given in the debating society of Berlin's Jewish Youth Movement, and some articles he'd written for the banned antiwar student journal
239:
or antagonist in the project embarked upon by both
Benjamin and Scholem in the summer 1916. Heidegger is sighted and marked as one who is carrying out the research in the same territory, but in an inverted spirit of German idealism cum militant German nihilism, whose political expression is
256:
The most authoritative and concise statement condensing the contents of the work appears in
Scholem's late reflections on theology. Benjamin's essay on language unfolds,"a specific affinity between Creation and Revelation since both were conceived of as the language in which divine being
69:
The questions provoking the essay, asked by
Scholem, spring from a debate between the two young scholars earlier that August which had been concerned with how to integrate or import recent insights about the nature of spacetime in the
176:. Leon Kellner was "the executor of Herzl's diary and the publisher of his collected works," as Scholem remarked at the time. This elder Kellner, in particular, distinguished himself by advocating for the reintroduction of
107:
major current within the long-term correspondence between
Benjamin and Scholem about the metaphysics of language and the Kabbalah which took shape from that time, continuing until the year of Benjamin's death in 1940.
192:, trading heavily on archaic philology of Hebrew, ethnographies of the period, and new visions of post-theistic ontology and the theory of categories encountered in researches embarked from the seminar of Doktor
181:
the essay and to
Benjamin and Scholem's larger project insofar as the incarnation and reincarnations of language, and of the Hebrew in particular, become one of the long-term themes of Benjamin and Scholem's
825:
102:. The work is, in this stringently technical sense, a work of 'theurgy' (involving the knowledge, nomination, invocation and 'summoning' of spiritual beings, as opposed to
140:"fictional conceit" (per Scholem) supposed to be away on business. In fact Pollak and Dora were in the process of divorcing. Benjamin would marry Dora the following year.
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1013:
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49:
in a conversation that began at a villa in the German countryside at the end of the summer in 1916. The second fragment in this trilogy is "
998:
1003:
296:
216:. Despite their titles, these works (especially Molitor's) are largely preoccupied with deciphering the mysteries of the
845:
Fences, Peter (2010). "The problem of historical time : conversing with Scholem, criticizing Heidegger in 1916".
606:. Internet Archive. Cambridge, Mass. : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp. 127–139.
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38:
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50:
301:
276:
205:
71:
120:
890:
512:(1st English Paperback ed.). New York: Jewish Publication Society of America. pp. 21–34.
403:
Benjamin, Walter (1999). "Doctrine of the Similar". In Jennings, Michael; Eiland, Howard (eds.).
144:
758:
607:
580:
485:
385:
348:
324:
Fenves, Peter (2008). "The mathematical Messiah: Benjamin and Scholem in the Summer of 1916".
200:, along two major works of a certain strain of mystical, occult research in the 19th-century:
168:
738:
478:
Benjamin, Walter (1994). "Letter from Walter Benjamin to Gershom Scholem, 11 November 1916".
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197:
193:
160:
124:
291:
286:
189:
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46:
42:
26:
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Scholem, Gershom. ""A Candid Letter on my True Intentions in Studying Kabbalah"(1937)".
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Scholem and Benjamin met in Munich and traveled together to a villa on the shore of
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245:
148:
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raged simultaneously along the Western Front not far from their meeting place near
99:
860:
Fences, Peter (2015). ""Entanglement of Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger"".
281:
103:
79:
34:
754:
600:
Scholem, Gershom Gerhard (2007). "Diary entries from August 14th-August 24th".
156:
90:, stretching down into the traditional base-layer of Hebrew scriptures in the
762:
389:
232:
132:
961:. Internet Archive. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World. pp. 46–48.
575:
Benjamin, Walter (1978). ""On the Language of Man and Language as Such"".
248:, even as Scholem and Benjamin's work was to be written under its shadow.
266:
217:
151:, a secretary, emissary, translator and right-hand man of the founder of
87:
82:. It opens an avenue to the recovery a lost sense of the unpronounceable
75:
33:; 1916) is the first of an uncompleted trilogy of essays articulating a
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271:
152:
136:
603:
Lamentations of youth : the diaries of Gershom Scholem, 1913-1919
369:
241:
163:
435:
The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem 1932-1940
381:
182:
95:
91:
694:
Scholem, Gershom (1997). ""Thoughts About Our Language" (1926)".
942:
Lamentations of Youth: The Diaries of Gershom Scholem, 1913-1919
484:. Internet Archive. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
579:. New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. pp. 314–332.
577:
Reflections : essays, aphorisms, autobiographical writings
347:. New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. pp. 333–336.
345:
Reflections : essays, aphorisms, autobiographical writings
955:
Benjamin, Walter (1968). ""Introduction"(by Hannah Arendt)".
910:
Heidegger, Martin. "The Word of Nietzsche/The Death of God".
370:"Introduction to Walter Benjamin's "Doctrine of the Similar""
433:
Scholem, Gershom; Benjamin, Walter (1989). "Letters 27-34".
98:), where an encounter with this name is foregrounded in the
977:
Scholem, Gershom (2012). "Reflections on Jewish Theology".
796:
Lamentations of Youth: Diaries of Gershom Scholem 1913-1919
678:
Lamentations of Youth: Diaries of Gershom Scholem 1913-1919
437:(1st English ed.). New York: Schocken. pp. 60–79.
739:"The Name of God and the Linguistic Theory of the Kabbala"
66:
years old at the time; Benjamin, twenty-two years of age.
31:Ăśber Sprache ĂĽberhaupt und ĂĽber die Sprache des Menschen
798:. Harvard University Press. pp. 106, 143, 149–151.
981:. Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books. pp. 279–280, 268.
737:
Scholem, Gershom; Pleasance, Simon (September 1972).
448:
Benjamin, Walter (1996). "The Metaphysics of Youth".
343:
Benjamin, Walter (1978). ""On the Mimetic Faculty"".
877:
On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in our Times
781:On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in our Time
185:on the metaphysics of language and the Holy Name.
420:Selected Works of Walter Benjamin, vol. 2, part 2
405:Selected Works of Walter Benjamin, vol. 2, part 2
45:, in response to a series of questions raised by
481:The correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940
119:in mid-august of 1916, while the battles of the
783:. The Jewish Publication Society. pp. 3–6.
223:From the outset of the discourse, the work of
23:On Language as Such and on the Language of Man
698:. Jewish Publication Society. pp. 26–29.
629:Lamentations of Youth: Diaries from 1913-1919
540:Lamentations of Youth: Diaries from 1913-1919
527:. Harvard University Press. pp. 168–169.
422:. Harvard University Press. pp. 684–685.
407:. Harvard University Press. pp. 694–698.
143:The third member of this party at the villa,
8:
231:great Nazi philosopher," is identified as a
227:, who is to become, "the great...indeed the
794:Scholem, Gershom; Anthony, Skinner (2007).
696:On the Possibility of Mysticism in Our Time
467:. Harvard University Press. pp. 37–47.
452:. Harvard University Press. pp. 6–16.
37:or post-metaphysics of language in and as
418:Benjamin, Walter (1999). "On Astrology".
680:. Harvard University Press. p. 135.
631:. Harvard University Press. p. 135.
558:"Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms on Kabbalah"
542:. Harvard University Press. p. 157.
875:Scholem, Gershom (1997). "Messianism".
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510:Walter Benjamin: Story of a Friendship
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147:was, incidentally, the daughter of
944:. Harvard Presidents. p. 148.
912:The Question Concerning Technology
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465:Selected Works, vol. 1: 1913-1926
450:Selected Works, vol. 1: 1913-1926
297:The Origin of German Tragic Drama
556:Scholem, Gershom; Biale, David.
1014:Works about Charles Baudelaire
74:into the revenant language of
1:
979:Jews & Judaism in Crisis
849:. Stanford University Press.
826:"Lecture on German Nihilism"
196:that Benjamin attended with
927:Nietzsche Seminar vol.s 1-4
894:Heideggerian Existentialism
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925:Heidegger, Martin (1955).
755:10.1177/039219217202007903
999:German literary criticism
940:Scholem, Gershom (2007).
896:[ 1956; Integral]
676:Scholem, Gershom (2007).
627:Scholem, Gershom (2007).
538:Scholem, Gershom (2007).
523:Scholem, Gershom (2007).
508:Scholem, Gershom (1980).
463:Benjamin, Walter (1996).
368:Rabinbach, Anson (1979).
202:The Philosophy of History
30:
1004:Works by Walter Benjamin
277:The Theory of Relativity
18:Essay by Walter Benjamin
847:The Messianic Reduction
235:figure and adversarial
662:The World Of Yesterday
645:The World Of Yesterday
51:On the Mimetic Faculty
824:Strauss, Leo (1941).
659:Stefan Zweig (1943).
642:Stefan Zweig (1943).
525:Lamentations of Youth
302:Philosophy of history
159:editor of the major
72:theory of relativity
914:. Harper Perennial.
879:. JPS. p. 113.
374:New German Critique
210:Theory of Sacrifice
155:and the "hallowed"
145:Dora Sophie Kellner
96:Five Books of Moses
86:at the root of the
710:"Heavier Than Air"
242:National Socialism
100:theophany of Moses
809:Steiner, George.
613:978-0-674-02669-8
586:978-0-15-676245-8
491:978-0-226-04237-4
354:978-0-15-676245-8
169:Neue Freie Presse
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78:after the
55:Der Anfäng
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84:Holy Name
743:Diogenes
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267:Kabbalah
261:See also
218:Kabbalah
208:and the
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88:Kabbalah
76:theology
61:Overview
272:Ein Sof
252:Summary
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183:pairing
153:Zionism
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111:History
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125:Verdun
27:German
829:(PDF)
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92:Torah
759:ISSN
721:2023
608:ISBN
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94:(or
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