# The Star of Redemption (Modern Jewish Philosophy and Religion  ## Metadata - Author: [[Franz Rosenzweig, Michael Oppenheim, Elliot R. Wolfson, and Barbara E. Galli]] - Full Title: The Star of Redemption (Modern Jewish Philosophy and Religion - Category: #books ## Highlights - A particular that "knows" that the universal exists is no longer merely a particular, but a particular that, without ceasing to be essentially particular, has already reached the frontiers where the power of the universal is exercised. This is the "individual," the singular, which bears on its body the marks of the universal, not of the universal in general, which obviously does not have "marks"-but of its universal, of its genus, of its species, while remaining essentially a particular, except that now it is an "individual" particular. (Page 56) - Free will is as free as the free divine action; but God does not have free will, man does not have free power; "to be good" means in God's case to do good, in man's to will good. (Page 75) - The silence of the tragic hero is silent in all art and in all art is understood without any words. The Self does not speak and yet is heard. The Self is seen. The pure, mute seeing effects in each spectator the turn inward into his own innerness. (Page 90) - The hero was a man, if only in the primordial world. But the mystic is not a man, he is scarcely half a man, he is only the vessel of the raptures he feels. He speaks, certainly, but what he says is only answer and not word, his life is only waiting and not walking forward. But only a man in whom the answer would give rise to the word, in whom the waiting for God would give rise to walking before God, only he would be a true man, fully a man. Only he could counterbalance the hero; for only he would be visible, only he would be as much a figure as the hero is. (Page 224) - Love for the neighbor is that which at every moment surmounts and yet always presupposes that pure surrender. For without this presupposition, it could not be that which according to its essence it must be: necessary, despiteyes, despite!-its selfrenewing at every moment. It would be only "freedom"; for its origin would only reside in the will alone; but man can only externalize himself in the act of love, once the soul has been awakened by God. Only the love received from God makes the act of love on the soul's part more than a mere act, namely the fulfillment of a-commandment of love. (Page 230) - Eternity is not a very long time, but a tomorrow that just as well could be today. Eternity is a future, which, without ceasing to be future, is nevertheless present. Eternity is a today that would be conscious of being more than today. And to say that the Kingdom is eternally coming means that its growth is no doubt necessary, but that the rhythm of this growth is not definite, or, more exactly: that the growth does not have any relationship to time. An existence that has once entered into the Kingdom cannot fall back outside again; it has entered under the sign of the once-andfor-all, it has become eternal. (Page 241) - Such is the entanglement of all action: the freedom is tied to the object it has in view, the good would only be possible in a world that is already good, the individual could not be good if all things are not good-and yet, the Good can only reign in the world thanks to good people, to use the extraordinary words of the Queen of Prussia. It is indissoluble, for man and the world are indissolubly bound. The taking action detaches the act from man, but then binds (Page 245) - God had to create the world so that like a disenchanted creature it could keep close under the wings of his providence. God had to call man by his name so that he, an opened soul, might open his mouth. (Page 246) - Moreover, the content is itself nothing other than that which establishes this form. One does not sing together in view of a specific content, but rather one seeks a common content in order to be able to sing together. If the genealogical sentence must be the content of a song performed together, it can only appear to establish such a harmony; the "he is good" must appear as a "for he is good." (Page 249) - the will to be a people cannot cling here to any dead means; this can be realized only by means of the people itself; the people is a people only through the people. (Page 319) - Language is alive because it can even die. (Page 320) - we defined the world as that which becomes, in contrast to God who became before all beginning, and in contrast to the Self which became in the course of past time. By reason of "its becoming out of nothing," we set the world at the end of the world, as we had set God at the dawn of the world and the Self at the light of its noon