Part of Drisha's Winter Week of Learning 2015 on Legend, History, and Halakhah: Rabbinic Judaism in the Context of the Hellenistic World

Part of Drisha's Winter Week of Learning 2015 on Legend, History, and Halakhah: Rabbinic Judaism in the Context of the Hellenistic World

As Channukah is a rabbinic holiday, it becomes in Chassidut a metaphor for the power and potential of oral law. By lighting Channukah candles, we become exposed not only to the unrevealed part of Torah but to unrevealed realms of our own lives and surroundings. How can Channukah be understood as a celebration of potential not yet actualized and dreams not yet made real?

This lecture compares Martin Buber's emphasis on mutuality in dialogue with Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas' philosophies of dialogue. While Rosenzweig and Levinas share much in common with Buber, they stress the fundamentally asymmetrical nature of our relation to others (we owe others something but they don't owe us anything) and to God (God commands us; we don't command God). We will explore the implications of these three philosophers' ideas for interreligious dialogue as well as their use of gendered language to make their claims.