Love strong as death

Jews against Heidegger (on the issue of finitude)

Agata Bielik-Robson

pp. 159-189

in: Mårten Björk, Jayne Svenungsson (eds), Heidegger's Black notebooks and the future of theology, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

According to Levinas, in Heidegger's death-dominated thought there is no place for being-with-the-other. But Levinas is not the first and not the only Jewish philosopher who uttered his objection to Heidegger's overestimation of death by drawing "out of the sources of Judaism": Franz Rosenzweig, Hannah Arendt, and Harold Bloom are also opposed to the Heideggerian mode of doing philosophy solely under the auspices of death. There is one feature they share: the importance of the intellectual heritage of the Song of Songs. In their approaches, "love as strong as death" lends itself to the philosophical speculation which offers a different conception of the finite existence, destined to die but no means exhausted by its lethal destiny and marked by passionate relations with others.

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin

Levinas Emmanuel

Arendt Hannah

Rosenzweig Franz

Bloom Harold