The Fence and the Neighbor: Emmanuel Levinas, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, and Israel Among the Nations

287 Pages·2000·15.08 MB·English

by  Adam Zachary Newton

THE FENCE AND
THE NEIGHBOR
Emmanuel Levinas)
Yeshayahu Leibowitz)
and Israel Among the Nations
ADAM ZACHARY NEW-TON
THE FENCE
AND THE
NEIGHBOR
SUNY series in Jewish Philosophy
Kenneth Seeskin, editor
and
SUNY series in Contemporary Jewish Thought
Richard A. Cohen, editor
THE FENCE
AND THE
NEIGHBOR
Emmanuel Levinas,
Yeshayahu Leibowitz, and
Israel Among the Nations
ADAM ZACHARY NEWTON
State University
of New York
Press
A University Cooperative Society Subvention Grant was awarded by the
University of Texas at Austin to help in the preparation of this book.
Cover photograph: Kadesh Naphtali. American Colony Studio, ~) 1900.
Courtesy Silver Print Collection, Ein Hod, Israel.
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2001 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Production by Susan Geraghty
Marketing by Anne M. Valentine
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means including elearonic,
electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise
without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, address State University of New York Press,
90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Newton, Adam Zachary.
The fence and the neighbor: Emmanuel Levinas, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, and Israel
among the nations I Adam Zachary Newton.
p. cm. - (SUNY series in Jewish philosophy) (SUNY series in contemporary Jewish thought)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7914-4783-9 (alk. paper) - ISBN 0-7914-4784-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Philosophy, Jewish. 2. Philosophy, Modern-20th century. 3. Levinas, Emmanuel. 4.
Leibowitz, Yeshayahu, 1903-5. Jews-Identity. 6. Jews-Politics and government-1948-
I. Title. II. Series. Ill. Series: SUNY series in contemporary Jewish thought
B5800 .N39 2000
181'.06-dc21
00-022597
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Preface: Fences and Neighbors
lX
Acknowledgments
XVt1
Abbreviations
X1X
Introduction: Signing the World 1
Chapter 1 Aggadic Man: Levinas and the Neighbor
as (Br)Otherhood 23
Chapter 2 Mishurat haD in: Leibowitz, Nationhood, and the
Fence of Halakhah 101
Epilogue: The Present of "Future Jewish Thought" 169
Notes 187
Works Consulted 241
General Index 253
Scriptual Index 259
v

For Lisa
The caress of love, always the same, in the last account
ing ... is always different and overflows with exorbi
tance the songs, poems, and admissions in which it is
said in so many different ways.
a
La sagesse de l'amour Ie service de ['amour.
-Emmanuel Levinas
Au repoussoir
Time and again, at the end of a working day, I mar
veled to see that Ferber, with the few lines and shadows
that had escaped annihilation, had created a portrait of
great vividness. And all the more did I maruel when, the
following morning, the moment the model had sat
down and he had taken a look at him or her, he would
erase the portrait again, and once more set about exca
vating the features of his model, who by now was dis
tinctly wearied by this manner of working, from a sur
face already badly damaged by the continual
destruction. The facial features and eyes, said Ferber,
remained ultimately unknowable for him. He might
reject as many as forty variants, or smudge them back
into the paper and overdraw new attempts upon them;
and if he then decided that the portrait was done, not
so much because he was convinced that it was finished
as through sheer exhaustion, an onlooker might well
feel that it had evolved from a long lineage of gray,
ancestral faces, rendered unto ash but still there, as
ghostly presence, on the harried paper.
-w. G. Sebald

PREFACE
Fences and Neighbors
Something there is that doesll't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps evell two call pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them alld made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hidll1g,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at sprillg mendillg-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the lille
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balallce:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another killd of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones ullder his pilles, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good Ileighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are 110 cows.
Before [ built a wall I'd ask to know
What [ was walling in or wallillg out,
And to whom [ was like to give offellse.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, alld I'd rather
He said it for himself. [ see him there
IX