Steven S. Schwarzschild (1924–1989) was a rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

, philosopher, theologian, and editor

Editing

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...

.

Biography

Schwarzschild was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and grew up in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. He escaped to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 with his family in 1939.

He received ordination at Hebrew Union College

Hebrew Union College

The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism.HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.The Jerusalem...

 in Cincinnati in 1948. After returning to Berlin to serve as rabbi of the Berlin Jewish Community under the auspices of the World Union for Progressive Judaism

World Union for Progressive Judaism

The World Union for Progressive Judaism describes itself as the "international umbrella organization for the Reform, Liberal, Progressive and Reconstructionist movements." This overall Jewish religious movement is based in about 40 countries with more than 1,000 affiliated synagogues...

 he met Lily Rose (1913–2009) whom he later married. In 1950 he returned to the United States serving in Temples in Lynn, Massachusetts

Lynn, Massachusetts

Lynn is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 89,050 at the 2000 census. An old industrial center, Lynn is home to Lynn Beach and Lynn Heritage State Park and is about north of downtown Boston.-17th century:...

, where he came into contact with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik of Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 whom he came to view as an important teacher, and in Fargo, North Dakota

Fargo, North Dakota

Fargo is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Cass County. In 2010, its population was 105,549, and it had an estimated metropolitan population of 208,777...

. He was a member of both Reform and Conservative rabbinic assemblies.

In 1965 he was elected Professor of Philosophy and Judaic Studies at Washington University, St. Louis.

He edited the journal Judaism-A Quarterly Journal from 1961 until 1969 and was the senior editor of the Werke of Hermann Cohen

Hermann Cohen

Hermann Cohen was a German-Jewish philosopher, one of the founders of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century".-Life:...

.

He was awarded an honorary degree by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Both in person and by correspondence he entered into dialogue with the American Protestant theologian and pacifist John Howard Yoder

John Howard Yoder

John Howard Yoder was a Christian theologian, ethicist, and Biblical scholar best known for his radical Christian pacifism, his mentoring of future theologians such as Stanley Hauerwas, his loyalty to his Mennonite faith, and his 1972 magnum opus, The Politics of Jesus.-Life:Yoder earned his...

, with the American Catholic monk and writer Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. was a 20th century Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion...

, and with many leading figures in philosophy and in Jewish thought.

In 1989 he died after suffering an aneurysm

Aneurysm

An aneurysm or aneurism is a localized, blood-filled balloon-like bulge in the wall of a blood vessel. Aneurysms can commonly occur in arteries at the base of the brain and an aortic aneurysm occurs in the main artery carrying blood from the left ventricle of the heart...

.

Contribution to Jewish philosophy

The topic of his dissertation was the thought of Nachman Krochmal

Nachman Krochmal

Nachman Kohen Krochmal was a Jewish Galician philosopher, theologian, and historian.-Biography:...

 and Hermann Cohen

Hermann Cohen

Hermann Cohen was a German-Jewish philosopher, one of the founders of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century".-Life:...

 as philosophers of history.

He published a series of academic journal articles on Jewish philosophical and theological topics such as Jewish ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

, aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

, messianism

Messianism

Messianism is the belief in a messiah, a savior or redeemer. Many religions have a messiah concept, including the Jewish Messiah, the Christian Christ, the Muslim Mahdi and Isa , the Buddhist Maitreya, the Hindu Kalki and the Zoroastrian Saoshyant...

, eschatology

Eschatology

Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...

, halakha

Halakha

Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...

, and the role of rationalism

Rationalism

In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

 and the philosophies of notable Jewish philosophers such as Martin Buber

Martin Buber

Martin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship....

, Hermann Cohen, Theodor W. Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno was a German sociologist, philosopher, and musicologist known for his critical theory of society....

, Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

, Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted...

 and Maimonides

Maimonides

Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...

.
He also showed an interest in the thought of rabbis such as Isaac Hutner, Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Joel Teitelbaum

Joel Teitelbaum

Joel Teitelbaum, known as Reb Yoelish or the Satmar Rav , was a prominent Hungarian Hasidic rebbe and Talmudic scholar. He was probably the best known Haredi opponent of all forms of modern political Zionism...

.

Following Hermann Cohen

Hermann Cohen

Hermann Cohen was a German-Jewish philosopher, one of the founders of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century".-Life:...

, Schwarzschild espoused a form of neo-Kantianism

Neo-Kantianism

Neo-Kantianism refers broadly to a revived type of philosophy along the lines of that laid down by Immanuel Kant in the 18th century, or more specifically by Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy in his work The World as Will and Representation , as well as by other post-Kantian...

 and emphasized the role of the halakha

Halakha

Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...

 in Judaism as a rational system of moral ideals. He was also strongly influenced by Maimonides.

Political views

In other essays he expressed pacifist and democratic socialist views and critiqued Zionism

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

.

He asserted at the National Interreligious Conference on Peace:

"When God, the Radical, demands that we seek peace, He demands that we radically seek radical peace...not only when it fits into the political plans of our government, nor only when it is socially safe to talk about it, nor yet to the degree to which this seems practically prudent and promising of results, but under the irresistible command of God, always, everywhere, in every way, and totally, religion must insist on, explore, and practice the ways of peace toward the attainment of peace." (Judaism, Fall 1966).

Articles

• 'The Personal Messiah-Toward the Restoration if a Discarded Doctrine,' (1956), in Kellner, M. (ed.),The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'Franz Rosenzweig and Existentialism,'(1956), in Year Book of the Central Conference of American Rabbis,

• 'Do Noachites Have to Believe in Revelation? (A Passage in Dispute between Maimonides, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, and Hermann Cohen). A Contribution to a Jewish View of Natural Law,' (1962), in Kellner, M. (ed.), The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'To Re-Cast Rationalism,' (1962), in Frank, D. Leaman, O. and Manekin, C.H. (ed.), (2000), The Jewish Philosophy Reader,' (Cambridge University Press).

• 'The Lure of Immmanence-The Crisis in Contemporary Religious Thought,' (1967), in Kellner, M. (ed.), The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'Judaism, Scriptures, and Ecumenism,' (1967), Neusner, J. (ed.), Judaism and Christianity: The New Relationship, (1993), (Garland Pub.)

• 'On the Theology of Jewish Survival,' (1968), in Kellner, M. (ed.), The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'A Note on the Nature of Ideal Society-A Rabbinic Study,' in Kellner, M. (ed.), The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'The Legal Foundation of Jewish Aesthetics,' (1975), in Kellner, M. (ed.), Kellner, M. (ed.), The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'The Tenability of Herman Cohen's Construction of the Self,' (1975), Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 13, No. 3

• 'The Question of Jewish Ethics Today,' (1976), in Kellner, M. (ed.), The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'Moral Radicalism and "Middlingness" in the Ethics of Maimonides,' (1977), in Kellner, M. (ed.), The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'Jean-Paul Sartre as Jew,' (1983), in Kellner, M. (ed.), The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'An Introduction to the Thought of R. Isaac Hutner,' Modern Judaism, (1985), Vol. 5, No. 3

• 'A Critique of Martin Buber's Political Philosophy-An Affectionate Reappraisal,' (1986), in Kellner, M. (ed.),The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'On Jewish Eschatology,' (1986), in Kellner, M. (ed.), The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'Modern Jewish Philosophy,' (1987), in Kellner, M. (ed.), The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'Shekhinah and Eschatology,' (1987), in Kellner, M. (ed.), The Pursuit of the Ideal: Jewish Writings of Steven Schwarzschild (1990), (State University of New York Press)

• 'Adorno and Schoenberg as Jews Between Kant and Hegel,' Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, (1990), 35

• 'The Unnatural Jew,' in Yaffe, M.D. (ed), Judaism and Environmental Ethics: A Reader,'(2001), (Lexington Books.)