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Michael L. Morgan,
“Fackenheim and the Holocaust: Setting the Record Straight”
Emil
Fackenheim is regarded as one of the few Jewish theologians or
philosophers who saw the Holocaust as the momentous event for
contemporary Jewish life. The Holocaust was at the core of his long
career, and his post-Holocaust writings are likely his most
important contribution and legacy. But many widely held views about
Fackenheim’s post-Holocaust thought are seriously confused and
mistaken. One common error about his thinking is that as a
philosopher he was more interested in philosophers and theologians
than in concrete events and people. A second mistake is to
categorize Fackenheim as a traditional, narrow fideist, who thought
that after Auschwitz only those who believe in God can be authentic
Jews. Finally, many believe that Fackenheim began to think about the
Holocaust only after the Six Day War and the threat to the State of
Israel. In fact, his was a life-long encounter with the Holocaust,
not one that began in June 1967. He was not an abstract philosopher,
but a thinker whose thought was always responsive to the lived
experiences of people. Furthermore, his post-Holocaust thought is
open and sensitive to the nobility of an extraordinary spectrum of
ways of living our lives after Auschwitz; there is in his work a
remarkable sensitivity to Jews and non-Jews, to the strong and the
weak, and to many others. Fackenheim’s works constitute an
extraordinary legacy that deserve the most careful study. |
