@phdthesis{Zur2018,
  author    = {Zur, Avichai},
  title     = {פרדוקס 'הידיעה והבחירה' במשנת ר' צדוק הכהן מלובלין},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-412201},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {371, xxxiii},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {This research deals with R. Zadok's innovative writings. According to most scholars R. Zadok continues the doctrine of his rabbi R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica and introduces existential fatalism: man has the freedom to act against the customary law, according to God's will which is revealed in his heart, even in his passions, which exceed the Halacha; however, man does not determine the will that is revealed in the root of his soul, but only uncovers it. Many expressions, in content and form, of this fatalism can be found in R. Zadok's writings; yet, he also introduces many remarks about human free choice and its creative power to establish and determine man's root and re-establish and influence the Divine worlds and this world. This research focuses on these passages whose centrality has been so far neglected by research. Hence, its renewed understanding of his doctrine. R. Zadok's position can be explained by means of the paradoxical perception, which claims the full strength of the two opposites and even a mutual influence between them, which creates a difficult yet fertile tension: as opposed to the a priori intellectual and formal process of fatalism where Divine Foreknowledge eliminates free choice, R. Zadok introduces fatality which identifies in reality itself the Divine foreknowledge and will that exist in all things. In R. Zadok's fatality, Divine foreknowledge does not eliminate free choice; on the contrary, without Divine foreknowledge, nothing has existence. Therefore, only the existence of Divine foreknowledge within free choice enables its true and indeed free fulfillment. R. Zadok's ontological perception is realized not only in the direct content of his words but also indirectly, in the method of his exegesis and the sense he gives to the concepts he discusses. Therefore the fatality is revealed in other areas in which there is a gap between the absolute dimension ('Yedi'ah') and the contingent dimension ('Bechirah'): the lie, imagination, evil, sin, suffering etc., indeed contingent compared with the absoluteness of truth, good, etc.; however, according to R. Zadok, God wants them as such - that is to say, they have an essential existence and actuality that are not absolute, but rather as such: as contingent, temporary and relative. However, these essential existence and actuality do not confirm them as they are but create a transformation within them. For example, evil does not become absolute good or remains evil but rather turns into 'Very Good' (Tov Me'od) which includes evil and according to Rabbi Zadok is greater than regular good. From this, rises also the opposite influence: that of free choice, or contingent Bechira in general, on Divine Foreknowledge, or absolute Yediah in general. According to R. Zadok, when the contingency and relativity of "Bechirah" received its essential existence and actuality, it has the power so to speak, to add dynamism to the permanent Divine absoluteness of the 'Yedi'ah': the affliction (Nega; נגע) of sin or suffering turns by itself, by interchanging its letters, into pleasure (Oneg; ענג) which is greater than regular delight. Man has the power to influence the upper worlds by decreeing decrees or by canceling Divine decrees; he also has the power to influence the daily novelties of this world, by the novellaes of the Oral Law and the sanctification of the new month which is capable of changing the movement of the zodiac. The human creativity of the novellae of the Oral Law is included in the Divine truth which is hidden in the Written Law and it only reveals and interprets the latter; but on the other hand, according to R. Zadok, the source of the dynamic vital novellaes of the Oral Law is higher than the source of the permanent absoluteness of Written Law and they are those which create and determine the latter. R. Zadok introduces two main concepts for his paradox: On the ontological perception - Yichud Gamur, the Ultimate Unification of God, in which the contingent duality (between God and His creation, and the choice it enables) of the Lower Unification paradoxically exists with the absolute unification and Divine Foreknowledge of the Upper Unification. On the perception of man's existential situation - HaShoresh HaNe'elam, The Hidden Root: unlike Rabbi Mordechai Yosef, his rabbi, rabbi Zadok claims that man determines his destiny by his willful contingent actions - yet, simultaneously, like his rabbi, he also claims that the man's permanent root is determined by God and His Foreknowledge and it is what determines his actions for better or worse. But above these R. Zadok points to an additional Hidden Root which is higher than the permanent one: it is indeed an absolute root (Yediah) yet is determined and established by man's willful actions (Bechira), similar to the Divine creation of 'ex nihilo'.},
  language  = {mul}
}
@book{Martins2016,
  author    = {Martins, Ansgar},
  title     = {Adorno und die Kabbala},
  series = {Pri ha-Pardes},
  journal   = {Pri ha-Pardes},
  number    = {9},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-369-5},
  issn      = {1863-7442},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-9120},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-91201},
  publisher      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {211},
  year      = {2016},
  abstract  = {Im neunten Band der Reihe geht Ansgar Martins kabbalistischen Spuren in der Philosophie Theodor W. Adornos (1903-1969) nach. Der Frankfurter Gesellschaftskritiker griff im Rahmen seines radikalen materialistischen Projekts gleichwohl auch auf ‚theologische' Deutungsfiguren zur{\"u}ck. Vermittelt durch den gemeinsamen Freund Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) stieß Adorno dabei auf das Werk des Kabbala-Forschers Gershom Scholem (1897-1982). Zwischen Frankfurt und Jerusalem entwickelte sich eine lebenslange Korrespondenz. F{\"u}r Adorno erscheint vor dem Hintergrund l{\"u}ckenloser kapitalistischer Vergesellschaftung jede religi{\"o}se Sinngebung in der Moderne als unm{\"o}glich. Der Tradition der j{\"u}dischen Mystik schreibt er hingegen eine innere Affinit{\"a}t zu dieser hoffnungslosen Logik des ‚Verfalls' zu. Sie scheint ihm zur unumg{\"a}nglichen S{\"a}kularisierung religi{\"o}ser Gehalte aufzufordern. Adornos kabbalistische Marginalien beziehen einen breiten Horizont j{\"u}disch-messianischer Ideen ein. Er verleugnet dabei nie, dass es ihm um eine sehr diesseite Verwirklichung geoffenbarter Heilsversprechen zu tun ist: Transzendenz sei als erf{\"u}llte Immanenz, als verwirklichte Utopie zu denken. In diesem Anliegen sieht Adorno selbst jedoch gerade seine {\"U}bereinstimmung mit der Kabbala. Adornos kabbalistische Motive, die auf Scholems Forschungen zur{\"u}ckgehen, werden hier ausf{\"u}hrlich an seinen Schriften und Vorlesungen untersucht. In seinem Verst{\"a}ndnis der philosophischen Tradition sowie im Modell der Metaphysischen Erfahrung suchte er etwa explizit Anschluss an Deutungen der Kabbala: Das unerreichbare Urbild der Philosophie sei die Interpretation der geoffenbarten Schrift. Wie s{\"a}kularisierte heilige Texte wurden Werke von Beethoven, Goethe, Kafka oder Sch{\"o}nberg so zum Anlass f{\"u}r ‚mystische' Interpretationen. Deren detaillierte Untersuchung erlaubt, das viel beschworene j{\"u}dische Erbe von Adornos Philosophie zu konkretisieren und bedenkenswerte Einzelheiten von der Negativen Dialektik zur {\"A}sthetik in den Blick zu nehmen.},
  language  = {de}
}