zadok krouz © ON THE PURPOSE OF MAN Part 2 

ON THE CONDITIONS TO FULFILL MAN`S PURPOSE

Part 2

 Dr. Zadok Krouz

Fullfilling God's ordinance to love thy neighbor is not singular act, but rather a long line of acts. The conditions fulfill the purpose are measured in fulfilling actions:

1. Expectation and disappointment

 2. Loving thy neighbor

 3. Prayer

 4. Anticipation

 1. Expectation and disappointment in the present

The word "expectation" is, for Rosenzweig, a synonym for "waiting" (Naharayin 231). He explains: "The thinker knows previously his logic; their expression in his mouth is nothing other than an essential yielding because of the defects in the means of our mutual understanding, as he calls it. But the defect is not because we require language, but because we require time. That is God is unable to make prior what is the later, we need to wait for the time to come, dependent on our fellow man in our path. "A description of the following  comparison between a person who waits and the person "who remembers" will demonstrate Rosenzweig's intention when he stated:…the waiting of the world is itself, after all, tantamount to the forcible eliciting of that act [of love]" (Star 257).

            There are persons who live waiting, expecting something which must come. They always wait, forever expecting. And there are persons who live always yearning for what was and is no longer. Memories comprise their entire life. According to Rosenzweig, the lives of such person who wait in the present no (in this moment, in this day, in this week, in this season) compulsively bring about the future, the world- the visible, love of the neighbor, coming to the eyes of everything that lives. They have meaning for them, for the waiting is the preamble to every act of love vis-à-vis the world and links the thought that sweetens the act of  man's love in the world. "Those who wait" understand and hope in the present for the coming future, "those who remember" do not hope in the present and deny any idea of waiting in favor of that which was. The former,, the, live in the present  with the potential of renewal of vision and real prediction; " we shall live the future only in waiting (Star 249). The latter live the present while not existing in it. This waiting "delivers the delivered kingdom in the action of man" (Star 257). One waiting for the world did not progress progressively into endlessness of the kingdom, rather it is  he who will cause the world to meet eternity that is within time, the present. It is he who will resurrect, the future for the "eyes of everything that lives" (Star 249). "Cast thy bread on the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days" (Ecc. 11:1). Man waits, expects, wants something, and thus he builds the strength to present fulfillment, in his present life. He does not raise lost memories, but waits for the vision of the prediction in "the eyes of everything that lives." (Rinat Yisrael 268) – to his eternal love towards his neighbor, to his being associated. He waits each and every moment, he comes to anticipate the future and leaves the distant the near and now. "Keep the munition, watch the way, make they loins strong, fortify thy power mightily," says the prophet (Nah. 2:2). Waiting delivers the kingdom, heralds the future, brings about man's action and renews the proximity to the world. For waiting strengthens the loins, the beloved's loins of love of time past and protects and preserves it forever, for : "only thus does the future become the time of eternity" (Star 256).

But he who remembers always, exisiting only in the past, is the man of detached creations, closed, fearful, doubtful, living on something that is no longer. He is non-present, and in respect of him, "all expectations are but vanity and the gates of hope are closed" (Agnon 122).

The one who waitis is the truly full human being , possessing the internal strength of waling before God, and wishing to be, himself, the "saint" (Star 239), to be present. He does not evade, but rather accepts the full responsibility of life of " first not tomorrow. He lives in the present. According to Rosenzweig, life in the present is life of returning to history:

Rather revelation remembers back to its pas, while at the same time remaining wholly of the present; it recognizes its past as part of a world passed by. But thereby it also provides its presentness with the status of something real in the world. For that which is grounded in a past is, in its presentness too, a visible reality, and not merely internal. (Star 215)

The days, the mourning and the evening , the weeks, the holidays, the seasons return. Even historical events such as Mont Sinai and the revelation of God to the Fathers, according to Rosenzweig, return in the private and the individual soul of the chosen man. The man who lives in the present in an act of waiting is the man who knows how to give meaning to life in the present, to life everyday, every Sabbath, every holiday, every season. The personality which has in it the sense of life of blessing, of fullness, "the external fulfillment to which love extends its hand…" (Star 234), of the force of anticipation which grasps the future, can attain such a level that each morning will be life the first morning, that each Sabbath will like the Sabbath of Creation, and each season will as it was the first time. Then, repetitition will not be wearisome and boring. Everything will repeat and yet be new ["Anew with every new day" (Star 196)], a visible reality. According to Rosenzweig, the present will be eternity and eternity will be present: "…this today, this everlastingness is not 'very long' time but rather 'even today'" (Star 263).

What is considered in the created world as a fixed and stable external fact becomes, as result of the power of waiting, and act of love that will occur in the future. If in "creation" identity is attained on the way from within to without, that is, from the experience of revelation to the description of reality as a state of revelation, in "redemption" this relationship is changed: the delivered world cannot be described—otherwise iti is nothing other than finished; rather, one may only anticipate it, waiti for its realization. "For the future is first and foremost a matter of anticipation, that is the end must be expected at any moment" (Star 256). We shall live the future only in expectation, but no only in this solitary act. The future is also realized with the force of ever-present disappointments, which are essential to their disappointments as the undertaking of redemption of the world. Otherwise, it would be frozen as an "organized, schematic deed" and would become past or "purpose" directed to the future without anticipation the present. The act of love must be entirely of the moment, spontaneous, not planned, finished and perpetual, and disappointment assists in preserving the authenticity of waiting as an act which bring, delivers and nourishes the future in the present in the deed of loving. Normally, when we hear the word "disappointment," we think of failure, retreat, despair, hopelessness; actually, dismay energizes expectation and preserves the strength of love. Disappointment prevents love from becoming a frozen, rigid and counterfeit act. It shows that love is not a planned act and it knocks all finished obedience from it. Disappointment nourishes love and transforms it into a faithful knocking of the soul in attaining the unknown—the eternity that is the apex of the Jewish religion.  

2. The act of loving thy neighbor

We already demonstrated in the section " The purpose of obliged necessity" that the soul of man must abandon the love of God in favor of the world, that is, the neighbor "for again the relationship I and Thou cannot grant the soul everlasting life beyond time and place to a future beyond its present revelation… I and Thou are linked to the most intimate and present time and do not burst forth 'in the eyes of everything that lives'" (Star 234). Now after all, man can express his being seen and heard. No longer is he a rigid marble stature like the tragic hero of antiquity- nay, he speaks" (Star 239). The soul abandons the love of God to "love thy neighbor as thyself." He must do this since he needs this force to complement the dedication demanded in the ordinance to love God. This complimentary force is realized in "waling before God." Man is complete man when he knows how to tear himself from the mystic experience and walk to God- to give his love, which he merited, to the world. Loving God is made complete by walking before God, that is, by loving his fellow man, for he is a creation of God; it is as if he walks before God, which compliments the walking in the past to God by loving him.

Prior to discussing the act itself, it is necessary to clarify first the concepts "neighbor" and "as thyself." Rosenzweig interprets "neighbor" as one who is near, the non-specific (Star 264, 265): "He is loved for his own sake, nor for this beautiful eyes, but standing there, because he happens to be nighest to me" (Star 248). "In the perception of the bliblical 'neighbor,' Rosenzweig follows the Septuagint and the translation dependent on it, which interperets it in the sense of 'proximate,' and understands this term literally" (Gutmann, HaPhilosophia, 345). Neighbor is not a definition of repose or strength or some other physical trait, but rather a definition of self. Precisely in the commandment to love one's neighbor, the self is definitely confirmed in its place" (Star 268). With regard to 'as thyself," Rosenzweig writes as follows:

…man is to love his neighbor like himself. Like himself. Your neighbor is 'like thee'… That is you- therefore stop distinguishing yourself from it, penetrate it, dissolve in it, lose yourself in it…. Out of the endless chaos of the world, one nighest thing, his neighbor, is placed before his sould, and concerning this one and well-nigh only concerning this one he is told: he is like you… but he is not to remain a He for you, and thus a mere It for your You. Rather he is like You, like your You, a You like You, and I- a soul.

If a man will increase his kindness towards this neighbor, he will find himself included within him, and he will love him "precisely like yourself, like yourself with no difference at all." "With no difference at all" is similar and identifiable with heart and emotion. Rosenzweig present the love of man as love of the passion for the beloved, and there is no passion here, since the longing derives from and returns to him." Precisely because of this, love of the "I" constitutes an example of the love for the neighbor, since love is the longing for unity, and there is no greater unity than "the I" – "but he himself," and if so, also love of man for his neighbor- with its development and deepening and increasing of the unity among them, as in the spirit of the Rosenzweig, "…a You like You, and I –a soul." In the words of the Maharal, "from the aspect that they [the man and his neighbor] are one." "All mankind are linked as one body. All are created in the image of 'God to complete the image and form of the highest which includes all the souls of mankind, all of them, for all are one head and one body composed of various organs ('evarim shonim"  in Hebrew)" (Malbin on the Torah Lev. 19:18). Rosenzweig uses similar  terminology: m'fulgey evarim"  or "evarim shonim" [articulation], that the head will love the hand like itself.

Rosenzweig alludes to mankind's universal unity in the world when he employs the term "like thyself." By the force of this soul self unity the power of the selfhood is embellished to the degree that the power elevates the divinity, reveals and redeems it. In the words of the Malbim of the Torah (Lev. 19:18): An individual entity which, in spite of its individuality strove for eternity, would have to take the All into itself: God, man, the world (Star 239-330). Redemption occurs when the "I" learns to say 'you" to the "he." Rosenzweig maintains (Star 268) that if one loves one near to one with all one's selfhood, one loves all mankind, whose selfhood is like his. That is, he loves the world. If one can say to another. I love through you the world, I love in you also myself!" For "You like You, and I—a sould" (Star 2668). "The neighbor is the other person, fellow-man…In the final analysis it goes out to everything in the world…" (Star 248). Loving each and every neighbor is like a rising for the counting—the eternity that will bring unity of all being as the final and highest development of reality and thought.

Love of the neighbor means occurance in the present every moment and forever: "his will is now destined to run in this direction which directs him once and for all…  I love… here this very moment" (Star 243). This is an event of sudden, renewed occurrence that does not result from an inborn personality trait (Starb 243-244)): "Love of the neighbor repeats and continually burst forth anew" (Star 245). The Rabbinical Sages considered renewal important. "The times are incalculable; neither man nor world knows them" (Star 270). Occurrence is the direction towards the dynamic content of love based on will for freedom of man blended with the compelling power of the act of love, which is essentially the source of the character that is not "personality" from birth but rather something which 'suddenly overcame a man" (Star 243-244) and plots for him "direction" to run as he will, and which gives him direction for the goal—man is "corrected (judged)," his directions is fixed once and for all. "With five names we can call it (the could of life): soul, spirit, life unit, creature. Spirit—for its rises and descends, as it is said: "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upsward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" (Eccl. 3:21). Spirit is occurrence and, in Rosenzweig's terminology, "running toward…" in other words, the occurrence, the running toward, is the animation since he is "a You like You, and I—a soul' (Star 268).

The concept of “running toward” is understood within the context of the soul, and its occurring content is the animation of the soul, the vigorousness of love which merits in the beginning to be “chosen” in his meeting with God. “Only” the power of the animation of loving thy neighbor, and not life itself, is the condition of eternal life of the soul. Only the dynamic growth, the process of “coming.” Having no relationship to time at all, makes the life of the soul eternal. The activity of the soul in the bountifulness of love is an act of dynamic growth, “rising and descending” as in the words of the Midrash. This dynamic love gives the soul directions in its attempt to gain victory of life over death. “Life offers resistance; it resists, that is, death” (Star 252). The fact that every moment might be the last makes it an eternal moment; overcoming death is buried in the essence of the moment of death. Love is strong as death, but at the same time death, possible at every moment which has no retreat, pure future. Redemption complements the day of God. The redeemed world will be living, animated, and more than that, all divine. Love grows in its vitality and nourishes the world, and the world is made more and more vital, more and more animated. This process is the act of love of man in the world, “vivification of existence” (Star 254), something additional imposed on life, something that will assure it immortality. Life is assured (Bürge) of citizenship in the kingdom—“the world which eternally cometh” (Star 254). Direction not only notes internal growth of life whose everlastingness is not certain, but marks an act of immortality. This is similar to that which is said in Ps. 17:15: “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” This is what loving thy neighbor gives and what life cannot grant: “animation, eternity” (Star 269). “The soul demands, as objects animated with soul by it, an articulated life. It then exercises its freedom on this life, animating it in all its individual members, and everywhere inseminating this ground of the living structure with the seeds of name, of animated individuality, of immortality” (Star 269).

            In his thought about the direction of the soul towards conquering eternity, Rosenzweig resembles Sartre, who also saw man as aspiring to break out of his happenstance existence and temporariness. As one aspiring to vanquish eternity, man seeks to go beyond the borders of time (Being and Nothingness 134).

            Loving thy neighbor grants something additional to life: “To fulfill life entirely” (Star 253). The example Rosenzweig supplies is matrimony. Marriage is a legal and natural relationship likely to be converted by additional life, by animation, to living full of soul. Redemption of the world does this. Love, which comes to man from above, and which is continued as if it were an additional pipeline to the world, strengthens and reinforces within the community  the forces of the direct link of the I-Thou. The plain anonymous It becomes the direct You. Rosenzweig sees a process in which man increases and fortifies the vital forces in the whole world, and adds life and vitality to the world. Man’s relationships are made more and more the relationships of love and kindliness, and this process, in which nature is made more and more full of life, is how Rosenzweig understands the direction of redemption of the world by man. In realizing this direction, complete man stabilizes or is “saint” (Star 239). Perfect man is the one who walks before God; he is dedicated to God and directed toward the world with the intention of being seen and heard directly by the other, which movement derives from “the experience of the soul and by soulful act. Therefore, he assumes a configuration which, to anticipate, is that of the saint” (Star 239). Love of the neighbor is walking to everlastingness, redemption of the world or preparing the kingdoms of heaven. This is the “I” as subject only. Zeev Levy teaches us that the common denominator between Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hermann Cohen, Rosenzweig, Buber Heidegger, Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Sartre and many other is that, notwithstanding the differences between them, at the center of their thought is the relationship between real man and the world, the world being perceived in the sense of fellow man, the rest of mankind, with whom he must conduct communal life. Whether or not any of these is a believer, each maintains the aspiration to nullify man’s experience as object. They aspire to see man as subject alone, determining his own fate, capable of developing his creative talents and expressing the totality of his human existence.

            Man as subject is the great purpose towards which one must act. Love of man, which comes as response and reaction to God’s love for man, is the absolute purpose; one must act to realize the complete human nature of man, to design it anew,, in order that man will be man in the full meaning of the word, in his full human stature. This is the meaning of the idea of redemption in Rosenzweig’s philosophy.

            Complete man is bestowed with power, life containing purpose of action because of his self-awareness, and consciousness of his fellow man, his past and the possibilities embodied in the future. The concept of “walking with god” means that one should not sit with hands clasped and wait for redemption, but must act for the purpose, for the future is already now. By his act, man anticipates the future in the present. This act is “the force of love, which is aroused in the heart of man beloved of God and bursts forth in abundance to the world… Marriage is an example in which love given great value… After the awakening of love the natural association can be fused with partnership-love and being made total unity, and bring about the greatest height of possible closeness between men… Redemption of the world is interpreted as slow but steady growth of these forces, a sort of continually increasing spreading of the influence of love on institutions of human life” (Gutmann, HaPhilosophia 346). The deed which results from the purpose of man in the externalization of his love is redemption of the whole word, what Rosenzweig terms a “redemption of the objects by means of the soul” (Star 258): “It anticipates all the world” (Star 257). It is a situation in which all nature, the entire present, all sing songs of praise to God together in the chorus. “…seas and rivers and all the heathen and God-fearing ones: Praise ye the Lord!” (Star 261) or making the world “animated” (Star 268). This lofty idea that redemption of the world is accomplished through the act of the soul, is truly one of the wonders of the human spirit. “Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 86:11). Love is not restricted to mankind, but is found in all of nature: “… the world, all the world with which it deals, is growing life” (Star 269). All relationships of the world of creation become a relationship of love, and mere relationship disappears totally. According to Hermann Cohen, the moral relationship between man and his neighbor is a stage of preparation to the relationship between man and God. Rosenzweig maintains that the relationship between man and God is primary, and the relationship between man and his fellow man results therefrom (Dat H’Tvuna 168, 170).

3. The act of prayer

            “Thus the chant of all is here joined by a stanza sung by but two individual voices- mine and that of my neighbor’s… Where the dual has once applied, where someone or something has become neighbor to a soul, there a piece of world has become something which it was not previously: soul” (Star 264). The Sages state: “The entered to pray, one started to pray without waiting for the other and then left, thus causing his prayer to be unacceptable, as it is said: “he teareth himself (nagsho in Hebrew) in his anger. Shall the earth be forsaken for thee?” (Job 18:4). Rashi comments that the explanation of prayer is hinted at in the language “nefesh” [soul]: What is the soul? Prayer, as it is said, “I shall pour my soul (nefesh) before God.” The essence of the soul is prayer. “The soul is made close to him,” maintains Rosenzweig. Every aspiration is in any event prayer. For that is the characteristic of man, whose strong aspiration is expressed within his heart and also on his lips—in prayer. Rosenzweig also thinks that in the communal chant (prayer) a soul is made for you by means of joining of two souls, for the soul is eternal, the testimony of what “we (in our souls) will praise God from this time forth and to eternity.” Rosenzweig continues: “but we… the eternal… the We are eternal; death plunges into the Nought in the face of this triumphal shout of eternity (in prayer). Life becomes immortal in redemption’s eternal hymn of praise” (Star 280).

            In the act of communal prayer, proper prayer, it is possible to bring eternity to time or, as Rosenzweig states (Star 261), to shift the reality of redemption to eternity, to feel the coming of the kingdom in “desirable time” (Star 300) and “time of Grace” (Star 300). Prayer must be realized through the believer’s wisdom. The desired time must be accompanied by the “We” (Star 266), and this communal prayer can be representative of eternity. In prayer one feels and influences eternity, whose objective is to come “today” (Star 364) to redeem the soul: “The redemption of the soul occurs in one breath, in the duet of both…” (Star 258). The praying soul thanks God and calls also all the world: “… seas and rivers and all the heathen and God-fearing ones: Praise ye the Lord!” (Star 261). “Sing to God, all ye lands… make a joyful noise unto the Lord; for he is good; for his mercy endurenth forever…” (Ps. 137:1 and 100:1; 1 Chron. 16). Praise and thanksgiving are the voice of the soul that is redeemed and redeems the world through mutual unity of the soul and the world.

            The “We” encompasses everything it can grasp and reach within its vision. But what it can no longer reach nor see it must eject from its bright, melodious circle into the Nought for the sake of its unity, calling it: You, being thus counted among those praying. Rosenzweig’s conception of the dichotomy between “We” and “You” is supported by the rule which states that a ger [convert] who prays in a synagogue says “the God of your fathers” (Mishnah Bikurim, ch. 1, sec. 4). Another example is found in the prayer said at the cemetery; “Blessed is He who know your numbers [all of you], He will come to judge you, He will raise you up, blessed be the faithful in His resurrecting of the dead” (Tosefta Berachot, ch. 7, sec. 9). The use of the language “you” carries with it an expression of lack of identification with that community to which the one praying relates his words. In the Haggadah of Passover, also, the above Midrash is supported. The language “to you” is required in the mouth of the “evil son” –to you and not to him…who removed himself from the group.” The We among you is explained to be the you,” according to Rosenzweig. One understands, then, the absence of stylistic print of “you” in all the remaining prayers in order to emphasize the total identification of the one praying with “We,” with the community. The only exception is the formula “You will bless the Lord (the one blessing)”; but the use of this formula is restricted to the beginning of the prayer in public (and also the reading of the Torah in public) to a time when the reader calls those present to join in prayer. Even the use of that formula in the blessing of calling the men to prayer is rejected by Shmuel the Amora. “Man will never remove himself from the group. That is, it is preferable to say “Let us bless” and not “You will bless”; and though the reader in the prayer says “you will bless,” it is interpreted in the Jerusalem Talmud: “Since the one blessing will say it, even he does not remove himself from the group, “but in the sources of the Tannaim there is no opinion which nullifies the use of “you will bless” in the blessing  calling the community to prayer. The “We” does not yet exist. In all of us, we separate from us the you. In opposition to the false security of you rises a secure We in God who ‘helps them and is their shield’. Israel is secure, it is the We Protected in his love as the eldest son of God, the heavens, even the heavens, are the Lord’s: but the earth hath he given to the children of me (Ps. 115:16; see Star 280), to man and not to the house of Israel, for there is no need that Judaism be redeemed since it has already attained the future in the present. Judaism already reached the objective, and it no longer needs to develop “We-the eternal” (Naharayim 68; Star 233). The community of those who pray constitutes a species of eternity within time. “For the Almighty exists within the community…” since God has already granted his love and revealed himself to the individual in the past. The Maharal bases his writing (“for the Almighty exists within the community”) on Hillel’s directive: “do not remove yourself from the community,” for the community and the whole are lasting and enduring. The whole is the entirety, which has the force of the whole. The community’s existence is entire. The Maharal’s comments are most helpful in understanding the emphasis Rosenzweig gives to the community in the concept of We.

4. The act of anticipating

            Rosenzweig conveys the form of the future (the kingdom that will come) to the present, so that redemption can be a portion of his life from the future that man sees and experience I the present. Loving thy neighbor is the means through which the future is formed.

            The concept of anticipation (prologue, fixing a relationship from the beginning, Vorwegnahme) comprises the foundation of the theory of redemption, whose active deed is the love of man. The concept contains fundamental conditions that dictate love as an eternal act necessary for redemption: “Wachsen wie Wirken Werden durch solche Vorwegnahme ewig [Both growth and act are made eternal by anticipation]” (Stern 290).

            The concept of anticipation contains fundamental conditions which are necessary in order to realize the act of love as an eternal event and to constitute redemption. The first condition is severance from the world. “Eternity is the future” (Star 254). Not yet realized in the world, eternity contains no historic category to help realize it. In eternity, time is irrelevant: “… the tempo of this growth is not fixed, nay more exactly: the growth had no relationship at all to time” (Star 254). The more we place eternity in opposition to life, which ends, the greater is the separation between them, for “we sought an Infinite, standing by itself, we found all kinds of finites, indefinitely numerous…. How can we resolve this contradiction?” (Star 252-253).

            In truth, the idea of redemption rest wholly on the future, that is, on the contradiction, on the paradox that the coming of the kingdom is essential, “an existence which had once merged into the kingdom cannot drop out again; it has entered the once-and-for-all, it has become eternal” (Star 254). However, “the inevitable growth of the kingdom is… nonetheless incalculable… And whether world and man find each other today or tomorrow or whenever—the times are incalculable; neither man nor world knows them” (Star 256). There must be a “sprouting of life” between the moment in which the soul is full of expectation of the future and coming of the future. For “the future it is, in short, decisive that it can and must anticipated” (Star 263; see also Star 249, 256, 253, 270).

            Another condition of anticipation is precisely the paradoxical aspect- communication in the world with the power of expectation for the side of the future, the side of eternity. Anticipation of eternity occurs every moment, and only by exiting from temporality, one attains timeless eternity. One anticipates infinite life and finds finite life, anticipates the kingdom of the world, compelled to be eternal, which, nevertheless, cannot be known. This future is the first and foremost anticipation; the end must be expected at every moment. “Only thus does the future become the time of eternity” (Star 256): “Erst dadurch wird sie zur Zeit der Ewigkeit” (Stern 288). The future is the coming world (Star 254), it is the world which has not yet been finished, which is in the process of becoming, that is perceived only through anticipation.

                        If one wanted to recount (like the past lying before us) the future as well, one would unavoidably be turning it into rigid past. That which is future demands to be predicted. The future is experienced solely in expectation. ‘The last’ must be here ‘the first in thought.’… The world is wholly self- revelation from the first, and yet it is still wholly of the broad daylight and withal mysterious in broad daylight- mysterious because it reveals itself before its essence exists. Thus it is every inch something which cometh – nay: it is a coming. It is that which is to come. It is the kingdom. (Star 249)

                                …the kingdom, the vivification of existence, comes from the beginning on, it is always a–coming… It is always already in existence and at the same time still to come… It is eternally coming. Eternity is not a very long time; it is a Tomorrow that could as well be Today. Eternity is a future which, without ceasing to be future, is nonetheless present. Eternity is a Today which is, however, conscious of being more than Today. (Star 254).

            According to Rosenzweig, the decisive element n the act of anticipation to realize everlastingness is the relationship between present and eternity. The significance of anticipation is “that every moment you must expect the end. Only thus does the future become the time of eternity” (Star 256). The life we live daily, living the present, at every moment can become eternal in the process of growth in content and vigor: “This anticipation, it is Today, this eternity…is not a very long time but rather ‘even today,’” a sort of “for his mercy endureth forever” (Star 263).

            The present returned what was taken in the creation of light by God: “The light which the Almighty created on the first day, man observes it from the end of the world to his end [of the world]” (Gen. Rabba, Chapter:3; Hagiga, Chapter:2; Shmot Rabba, Chapter:35). This return of one that is taken to the future, “of the coming, righteous men” ( is essential to the growth of the soul towards eternity, since without the anticipation the future is not future but only prior and momentary, not eternal, but dragged. The world ( Gen. Rabba, Chapter:3; ) is not finished; it becomes in the expectation of the coming of the future through anticipation. Rosenzweig explains:

                        Even if there is talk of ‘eternal’ progress- in truth it is but ‘interminable’ progress that is meant.  It is a progress which progresses permanently on its way, where every moment has the guaranteed assurance that its turn will yet come, where it can thus be as certain of its coming in to existence as a transpired moment of its already being-in-existence. Thus the real idea of progress resists nothing so strongly as the possibility that the ‘ideal goal’ could and should be reached, perhaps in the next moment… The future is no future without this anticipation and the inner compulsion for it, without this ‘wish to bring about the Messiah before his time’ and the temptation to ‘coerce the kingdom of God into being’; without these, it is only a past distended endlessly and projected forward. For without such anticipation, the moment is not eternal; it is something that drags itself everlastingly along the long, long trail of time. (Star 256)

Rosenzweig assumes a strong connection “between broadcasting the seed and ripening of the fruit” (Star 288). God sows the seed in eternity and in His eternity, both are as one, an allusion total redemption. Man and the world will be one with God—absolute redemption as distinguished from the redemption of the relative world of becoming.

The support for transition from the activity which is that of man to redemption is the apex; anticipation is the creation of an internal link between action in the present and the growth of the future. By the act, it is possible to make the future better in the present (Star 299-2308): “Both growth and act are made eternal by anticipation” (Stern 290). The act of love in its essence is directed to the whole world, to eternity, to “whoever be momentarily my neighbor” and “my neighbor represents all the world for me” (Star 265), and the world is that which eternally cometh, the directed act and objective whose goal is from then onwards engulfed in the future.

In the act of love, one anticipates the future in the present by creating a link between the present as the starting point and the future as desired end point. Just as revelation creates a link between past and present, the act of loving thy neighbor creates a link between present and future. The world, in tension between present and future through the force of anticipation, is not a closed and fixed world. The world, heading towards its objective aided by the act of love, is made eternal due to the anticipation because of the special connection: “Auch alles Wirken geht ja in die Zukunft, und der Nächste, den die Seele sucht, ist ihr immer bevor-stehend und wird nur in dem grade augenblicklich von ihr stenhenden vorweg-genomeen [All action, too, after all, head for the future, and the neighbor sought by the soul is always ‘ahead’ of her and is only anticipated in the one who just happens, momentarily, to be ahead of her]” (Stern 290).

We are able to relate to the objective not as to something given, but rather as something hoped for and expected. Love of the neighbor involves loving the world, and this in turn implies anticipating the future, eternity, the world that comes to eternity as an act of fulfillment. Once expects the act of fulfillment. Here is the thrust which is not mute, which does tread endlessly and thus put the neighbor beyond reach.

But this growth in every moment at an incalculable pace, and every moment must be prepared to assume the fullness of eternity. Accordingly the Ultimate is that which is expected with every next moment, while the Proximate is within reach at every moment, for it is but the locum tenens of the ultimate, the highest, the whole (Star 257).

“Und das Wachsen des Reichs in der Welt in der Welt, wenn es hoffend das Ended schon für den nächsten Augenblick vorwegnimmt—auf was wohl wartet es für diesen nächsten Augenblick, wenn nicht auf die Tat der Liebe? Dies Warten der Welt ist ja selbst ein Erzwingen jener Tat [And the dkingdom’s growth in the world, hopefully anticipating the end already at the next moment- what is it waiting for at this next moment if not for the act of love? This waiting of the world is itself, after all, tantamount to the forcible eliciting of that act]” (Stern 290).

“Das in Tat und Bewuβtsein ganz dem augenblicklich Nächsten zugewandte Wirken der Seele nimmt bei diesem Wirken doc him Wollen alle Welt vorweg [This world, for which we have hope, in engulfed beyond our reality, but is absorbed also in itself. With the act of the soul turned entirely, in deed and in consciousness, to that proximate to it at that moment, it anticipates through this act all the world]” (Stern 290). Anticipation assists the act of love of man in the world to realize its purpose, the eternal purpose, eternalizing, the Today walking toward the future with the power of the act of love.

Summary

On the Conditions to Fulfill Man's Purpose, Krouz takes the thoughts of Franz Rosenzweig regarding the ultimate purpose of man which is how to find and understand his relationship between himself and the world, and his perception of time, in order for love to occur; and when that happens, it will bring about his redemption in the present time. To achieve this, he gives us four set of conditions that man must fulfill. Firstly, there is the "expectation and disappointment," which is the man must learn to accept that there is virtue in waiting becomes when an event or action finally happens it would bring an exhilarating experience. At the same time, "disappointments" are also needed becomes with each instance, it can make us stronger, our love becomes stronger, our determination likewise will be for the better. Secondly, there is the importance of "loving thy neighbor." As Rosenzweig's explains, it is not possible for one to love or to love oneself if we don't love those who are different or close to us. It is not possible to "live the future" at this present time, if we don't show love. Thirdly, is the importance of "prayer."

 In prayer man can find himself, his love, and his "redemption" being in state of "eternity." Lastly, there is "anticipation." When man understands the sets of conditions that are there for him at the present time, he will see the "future" that is laid out for him. Having an understanding of these four important concepts will bring a more wholesome experience and understanding of man's relationship with the world.

List of Source Material Abbreviations

Cohen, Hermann. Dat H'Tvuna M'Mkorot H'Yehadut [Religion of the Intellect from Jewish Sources]. Trans. Zvi Veslavsky. Ed. Samuel Hugo Bergman and Natan Rotenstreich. Jerusalem: Bialik Inst., 1971.

Dat H'Tvuna

Levy, Ze'ev. M'vaser Existentialism Yehudi [A Precursor of Jewish Existentialism]. Tel-Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1969.

Mevasser

Naharayim

Rosenzweig, Franz. Naharayim [Selected Writings of Franz Rosenzweig]. Trans. Yehoshua Amir. Jerusalem: Bialik Inst., 1977.

Rinat Yisrael

Rinat Yisrael (Ashkenazic text). Ed. Shlomo Tal. Jerusalem: Morasa P, 1972.

Star

Rosenzweig, Franz. The Star of Redemption. 2^d ed. Trans. William W. Hallo. New York: U of Notre Dame P, 1985.

Stern

-------. Der Stern der Erlösing [The Star of Redemption]. Frankfurt A. Main: J. Kauffman Verlag, 1921.