Abstract
The summary revisits key findings pertaining to each of the interpretations and conceptual systems discussed throughout the work, with an emphasis on their implications on YHWH’s status as a proper name for the divine. It offers a broader comparative overview of the evolution of meanings attributed to the Name and suggests that from the biblical interpretation of the Name, which integrates both a descriptive and an indicative sense, two hermeneutical traditions emerge. Most importantly, the book concludes that out of the integration of these two hermeneutical traditions, a tendency particular to the Jewish tradition is revealed, indicating that Jews ask less what or who God is, and more how can He be spoken to.
Following the summary part, this concluding chapter turns to chart what, in the author’s view, are the key directions a contemporary name-theology ought to take, both in the individual and in the collective realms.
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Notes
- 1.
See Cohen, Reason, 42–43; Rosenzweig, Star of Redemption, 31–34; Levinas, Noms Propres, 114.
- 2.
George, Islamic Calligraphy, 21–95.
- 3.
Juhasz, Shiviti-Menorah, 15–29.
- 4.
See Levinas, Autrement qu’etre, 233.
- 5.
See Ashkenazi, Three Essays.
- 6.
See Likutey Moharan II, Torah 64; ibid., Torah 67; Rosenzweig, Star of Redemption, 341; Baeck, Essence of Judaism, 280–285.
- 7.
For a methodical survey of previous attempts, see Rothschild, Jewish Perspectives on Christianity.
- 8.
Novak, Chosen People, 222.
- 9.
This resonates with Novak, Covenantal Rights, 29: “This theological-political dilemma lies at the heart of the persistent Kulturkampf afflicting the Jewish people throughout the world, most acutely in the Jewish State of Israel but certainly not limited to it. The question is whether it is possible to bridge a commitment to the Jewish tradition and a concern for human rights. It would seem that the only way to do so with integrity would be to locate the concept of human rights within the Jewish tradition itself and then develop it from there.”
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Ben-Sasson, H. (2019). Toward an Outline of Jewish Name-Theology. In: Understanding YHWH. Jewish Thought and Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32312-7_8
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