Yeshayahu leibowitz biography templates

A selection of lectures and articles from the period —53 was published in book form, entitled Torah u-Mitzvot ba-Zeman ha-Zeh Other books published in and testify to his broad knowledge and great interest in Jewish life. In Eliezer Goldman published a collection of Leibowitz's essays in English under the title Judaism, Human Values and the Jewish Statemaking him known internationally.

Leibowitz regarded Judaism as a religious and historical phenomenon, which is characterized by a recognition of the duty to serve God in performing mitzvot. The service of God according to binding halakhic norms must be "for its own sake" li-shemahand its purpose is not designed to achieve personal perfection or to improve society.

Religion is thus not a means toward any specific end. Judaism is for Leibowitz not humanism, or a sentiment or a bundle of memories. Jews have the obligation to take upon themselves the yoke of Torah and mitzvot. Leibowitz's standpoint is thus neither anthropocentric or ethnocentric, but theocentric. Consistent with his own reasoning, Leibowitz refused to be called a "humanist," because this is an anthropocentric notion that envisages the human being as a supreme value.

Under the influence of Maimonides, Leibowitz stressed the transcendence of God, whom we cannot know. His thought also contains Kantian elements. Kant's critique of pure reason led to a theological agnosticism, whereas his critique of practical reason led him to affirm that the realization of values follows from a person's autonomous decision.

There is a tension between Leibowitz the philosopher who read Kant on human autonomy, and regarded politics and ethics as domains where human autonomy is decisive, and the halakhic man who lived in conformity with his strict halakhic, theocentric conception of Judaism. For Leibowitz, morality is thus an atheistic category. Kant's influence on Leibowitz is also clear when he states that the value of a religious act is determined by the intention.

Only when one performs an act because it is a divine commandment does it possess a religious value. Leibowitz repeatedly expressed his opinions on the religious aspect of Jewish life in Israel. Before the state of Israel was established, he stressed the religious importance that national independence would assume, provided it would bring about halakhic legislation designed to mold the character of the state.

After the establishment of the state, he advocated the separation of the Jewish religion from the state and its confrontation with it. He adopted a negative attitude toward the system of party rule, including the religious parties with their economic and rabbinical institutions. Leibowitz emphasized the necessity for innovation in the halakhahdue to the changed circumstances created by the establishment of the State of Israel.

He wanted halakhic decisions to cope with the challenge of today. One can note a change in his thought concerning the state in the yeshayahu leibowitz biography templates of time, although he himself would have denied this. Leibowitz refused to grant to the state religious status: the aim of the state would be the fulfillment of the needs of the individual and of the community, nothing more.

He thought it was idolatry to ascribe holiness to the land or the state, which is not in the words of religious Zionism "the beginning of the redemption. He was a Zionist, but he emphasized that the state need not realize values, it has merely to satisfy needs. The Jewish people, on the other hand, has to realize values. Against Ben-Gurion, he pleaded for the separation of state and religion.

Whereas Ben-Gurion wanted religion to be an instrument in the hands of the state, Leibowitz asserted that religion had to be in opposition to the state. For Judaism, only God is holy, whereas country, nation, and state lack that status. Leibowitz was a prolific letter-writer and his advice or comment was sought out widely. A first collection of his letters in Hebrew was published posthumously.

Before the founding of the State of Israel and for a few years after, Leibowitz still believed that the state should strive to adhere to Jewish Law, Halacha. He became progressively critical of government policy, and came to change his views completely. In his later philosophy he denied that the state of Israel had any Jewish religious significance and became an outspoken defender of the complete separation between religion and state.

He was among the first Israeli intellectuals who stated immediately after the Six-Day War that if Israel would hold on to the occupied territories, this would lead to the decline of Israel's moral stature. From then on to his death Leibowitz was an outspoken critic of Israeli values and national policy. His remarks accusing Israeli soldiers of a "Judeo-Nazi" mentality provoked a public outcry amongst Israelis.

Inhe was nominated for the Israel Prize. Before the award ceremony, Leibowitz was invited to speak to the Israel Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, where his controversial remarks calling upon Israeli soldiers to refuse orders triggered outrage and Yitzhak Rabin had threatened to boycott the ceremony. The jury convened to discuss the possibility of withdrawing the prize, but Leibowitz himself announced that he would refuse to accept it, because he did not want to create antagonism when receiving the prize.

Yeshayahu leibowitz biography templates

His grandson, Shammai Kedem Leibowitz, has also been controversial in his own right. His father was a lumber trader, and his cousin was future chess grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch. Inhe studied chemistry and philosophy at the University of Berlin. After completing his doctorate inhe went on to study biochemistry and medicine, receiving an MD in from the University of Basel.

He immigrated to Mandate Palestine inand settled in Jerusalem. Leibowitz was married to Greta, with whom he had six children. His son, Elia, was chairman of the Tel Aviv University astrophysics department, and the longest-serving director of the Wise Observatory. His daughter, Yiska, is a district prosecutor. His sister, Nechama Leibowitz, was a world-famous biblical scholar.

Leibowitz was active until his last day. He died in his sleep on 18 August Shamai Leibowitz is one of his grandchildren. Leibowitz joined the faculty of mathematics and natural science of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in He became a professor of biochemistry inand was promoted to the position of senior professor of organic chemistry and neurology in He taught at the Hebrew University for nearly six decades, lecturing in biochemistry, neurophysiology, philosophy, and the history of science.

Ethics, when regarded as unconditionally asserting its own validity, is an atheistic category par excellence. Leibowitz served as the editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica in its early stages. Apart from his innumerable articles and essays, Leibowitz authored a wide range of books on philosophy, human values, Jewish thought, the teachings of Maimonides, and politics.

Many of his lectures and discourses, including those given as part of the "Broadcast University" project run by Israeli Army Radio, were subsequently compiled and printed in book form. Leibowitz was a prolific letter-writer, and his advice or comment was sought out widely. A first collection of his letters in Hebrew was published posthumously.

Leibowitz was an Orthodox Jew who held controversial views on the subject of halakha, or Jewish law. He wrote that the sole purpose of religious commandments was to obey God, and not to receive any kind of reward in this world or the world to come. He maintained that the reasons for religious commandments were beyond man's understanding, as well as irrelevant, and any attempt to attribute emotional significance to the performance of mitzvot was misguided and akin to idolatry.

The essence of Leibowitz's religious outlook is that a person's faith is his commitment to obey God, meaning God's commandments, and this has nothing to do with a person's image of God. This must be so because Leibowitz thought that God cannot be described, that God's understanding is not man's understanding, and thus, all the questions asked of God are out of place.

Leibowitz claimed that a person's decision to believe in God in other words: to obey him defines or describes that person, not God. One result of this approach is that faith, which is a personal commitment to obey God, cannot be challenged by the usual philosophical problem of evil or by historical events that seemingly contradict a divine presence.

When someone told Leibowitz that he stopped believing in God after the Holocaust, Leibowitz answered, "Then you never believed in God". If a person stops believing after an awful event, it shows that he only obeyed God because he thought he understood God's plan, or because he expected to see a reward. But "for Leibowitz, religious belief is not an explanation of life, nature, or history, or a promise of a future in this world or another, but a demand".

Leibowitz believed in the separation of state and religion, and held that mixing the two corrupted faith. In contrast to his strict views on some matters, he was liberal on others. On the subject of homosexuality, for example, Leibowitz believed that despite the ban on homosexual relations in Judaism, homosexuals should do their best to remain observant Jews.

In his later philosophy, he became an outspoken defender of the complete separation between religion and state, which he was yeshayahu leibowitz biography templates for by He came to view political involvement as having a corrupting influence on Judaism, and argued for the separation of religion and state for Judaism's sake. He viewed politicized religion as not being truly religious, believing that it focuses less on the demands it makes on its adherents.

The Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police—mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel. The administration would suppress Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab Quislings on the other.

There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Forces, which has been until now a people's army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations. In an interview in Haaretz newspaper, Carlo Strengerwho knew Leibowitz personally, stated:.

Because of his provocativeness, it's easy to miss Leibowitz's profound moral seriousness and the great relevance of his thought today. He is often pigeonholed as belonging to the extreme left, which is a mistake. Leibowitz, never willing to bow to collective pressure, was the most unlikely of combinations: On the one hand he was a libertarian, an extreme form of classical liberalism, and believed that human beings should be free to determine their way of life without any state interference.

On the other hand, he was an ultra-Orthodox Jew who insisted that the state and religion must be separated completely to avoid corrupting each yeshayahu leibowitz biography templates. During the Mossad's killing of the Palestinian and Arab figures after the murder of the Israeli Olympic athletes in September Leibowitz declared in a public speech at Beersheba University the following view: "Whoever condemns the terrorism of the Palestinian organizations must at the same time condemn the terrorism of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Leibowitz became more harshly critical of Israeli policies following the Lebanon War. The jury convened to discuss the possibility of withdrawing the prize, but Leibowitz himself announced that he would refuse to accept it, because he did not want to create antagonism when receiving the prize. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history.

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