Reluctant Theologians: Franz Kafka, Paul Celan, Edmond Jabes

Document Type

Book

Publication Date

2003

Abstract

Beth Hawkins focuses on the problematic faith in the works of Kafka, Celan, and Jabès to reevaluate the notions of God and covenant in light of Nietzsche's "death of God" hypothesis. the divine-human relation. In Reluctant Theologians, she shows that Kafka, Celan, and Jabès offer as a testament, as three unique instances of Kiddush Ha-Shem (sanctification of the divine name), to a divine source that persists at the same time as it is being continuously reconstituted in the moment of writing. What connects Kafka, Celan, and Jabès to a postmodern philosophy is their shared belief that a specifically Jewish ethic can serve as a model for a universal ethic.

Contents:

  • Franz Kafka : creating a theology of the void
  • Setting the stage
  • The revaluative process : descipriotn, rejection, prescription
  • Paul Celan : the silence of relation
  • Toward a logic of the "both / and"
  • Counting and recounting
  • Building the space between
  • Edmond Jabes : the death of God and the emerging law of the other
  • Posing the questions
  • Murdering God : Yael
  • Abolishing the graven image Elya and Aely
  • The God of the void : El, or the last book.

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