In the Shadow of Death: Jewish Affirmations of Life

Paul Mendes-Flohr*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The Book of Genesis reports that “On the sixth day of Creation “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (1:31). The very, so a Talmudic sage taught refers to “death”. We are to share God’s exultant affirmation of His work of creation as culminating in death. For death is intrinsic to the blessings of life. As Buber notes in the epigraph cited above, life is “unspeakably beautiful because death looks over our shoulder”. The seeming paradox—an existential antinomy—inflected the vernacular Yiddish of my late father which was also that of Buber’s youth “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42); “love is strong as death” (Song of Songs; 8:6).

Original languageEnglish
Article number26
JournalReligions
Volume13
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Apotropaic practices of East European Jewry
  • Franz Rosenzweig
  • Hans Blumenberg
  • Joseph D. Soloveitchik
  • Martin Buber

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