Yeshayahu Leibowitz Quotes on God
Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) — the Latvian-born Israeli biochemist, philosopher of science, and Orthodox Jewish polemicist whose lectures and essays made him one of the most distinctive twentieth-century Jewish religious thinkers — gave modern Jewish theology its most uncompromising statement of the categorial separation between religious service of God and any ulterior human or political end. The central commitment is that authentic worship of God consists in the disinterested observance of the halakhic commandments for their own sake — without instrumental motivation by national, political, or psychological benefit — and that the conflation of religion with Zionism (or any other political program) constitutes a form of idolatry in which God is reduced to an instrument of human projects. The framework, developed across the Faith, History, and Values lectures and the broader Hebrew oeuvre, shaped subsequent Israeli philosophical-religious thought and remains the principal contemporary defense of Maimonidean halakhic religion against political-theological appropriation.
Quotes
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Attributed to Yeshayahu Leibowitz:
“Judaism is constituted by the commandments, not by beliefs about history or metaphysics.”
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Attributed to Yeshayahu Leibowitz:
“The state is not a religious value; it is a political instrument that may be used well or ill.”
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Attributed to Yeshayahu Leibowitz:
“Faith is the recognition of the obligation to serve God for no reward.”
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Attributed to Yeshayahu Leibowitz:
“To attribute holiness to the state is to commit idolatry.”
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“As for the " religious " arguments for the annexation of the territories—these are only an expression, subconsciously or perhaps even overtly hypocritical , of the transformation of the Jewish religion into a camouflage for Israeli nationalism . Counterfeit religion identifies national interests with the service of God and imputes to the state—which is only an instrument serving human needs—supreme value from a religious standpoint.”
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“Only a religion addressed to life's prose, a religion of the dull routine of daily activity, is worthy of the name.”
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“The religion of halakhic practice is the religion of life itself.”
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“From a religious point of view the triadic classification of being as nature, spirit, and God has no validity. There is only the dyad: nature, which includes the human spirit, and God. The only way man can break the bonds of nature is by cleaving to God; by acting in compliance with the divine will rather than in accordance with the human will.”
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