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TARRYING WITH THE APOCALYPSE 265

“endurable portion” of the original, violent “flame of love”, given with revela- tion. Here, the Law emerges as a delayed destruction of the creaturely world, where it is not beings but being as such that becomes the proper target. And it is precisely this delay and partial neutralization that allows the apocalyptic energy contained within the Law to be more precise in the act of targeting its enemy; instead of exploding the whole of creaturely reality, deemed wholesale as fallen and unworthy of any “spiritual investment”, it provides a more subtle missile which destroys only those aspects of “beingness” or “ontologism” that directly oppose the redemptive process.

Rosenzweig thus manages to achieve a wary, truly man-made form of messian- ism, which does not pretend to imitate or follow God directly, but adds a characteristically human, covenantal contribution to the process of redemption. Positing itself between two lordly powers — creation and destruction — it offers modest “works of the Slave” that do what only humans can do: meticulously mend, fix and repair, constantly lifting the world from the lowest realms of the creaturely condition.

Such an approach complicates the simplistic opposition of “retainer” and “apocalyptist” that has been bequeathed to us by Taubes. The Rosenzweigian “lightning rod” works neither as a simple Aufhalter (retainer), which treats Apocalypse as its adversary, nor as a “hastener”, pushing towards the eschato- logical state of exception. The Law itself, when seen through this metaphor, becomes a form of messianic energy (a structure that brings the lightning down to the ground) — and more than that: the only form that this originally anarchic and anomic energy can acquire to become effective in the world of creation and manifest itself in concrete works. And as a form — i.e. never a direct negation — of apocalyptic fire, the Law is also in its own dialectical way antinomian, that is, antithetical to the rules of creaturely life, which it slowly transforms, patiently anticipating the advent of the messianic “otherwise than being”.

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References

Agamben, G. (2005) The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, trans. Dailey, P., Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. Badiou, A. (2003) Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, trans. Brassier, R., Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. Benjamin, W. (1978) Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, trans. Jephcott, E., Schocken Books, New York. Benjamin, W. (1998) The Origin of German Tragic Drama, trans. Osborne, J., Verso, London. Derrida, J. (1994) Specters of Marx: The State of Debt, The Work of Mourning, and the

New International , trans. Kamuf, P., Routledge, New York and London. Gold, J. R. (2006) ‘Jacob Taubes: Apocalypse from Below’, Telos, Spring, pp. 140–156. Hegel, G. W. F. (1967) Phenomenology of Mind, trans. Baillie, J. B., Harper & Row, New

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Levinas, E. (1994) ‘Toward the Other’, in Nine Talmudic Readings, trans. Aronowicz, A., Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN. Levinas, E. (1995) Cztery lektury talmudyczne, trans. Burska, E., Oficyna Literacka, Cracow. Levinas, E. (2000) Inaczej niz byc lub ponad istota, trans. Mrowczynski, P., Aletheia, Warsaw. Maimonides, M. (1993) ‘Hilchot Meilah 8:8’, in Sefer Hamitzvoth (Ramban Mishneh Torah ), Hebrew–English edn., trans. Silverstein, S., Moznaim Pub. Corp, New York. Rosenzweig, F. (1985) The Star of Redemption, trans. Hallo, W. W., University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN. Scholem, G. (1973) ‘Zehn unhistorische Sätze über Kabbala’, in Judaica 3, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt. Scholem, G. (1976) ‘Reflections on Jewish Theology’, in On Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays, Schocken Books, New York. Scholem, G. (1995) The Messianic Idea in Judaism: And Other Essays on Jewish Spiritual- ity, Schocken Books, New York. Taubes, J. (2002) ‘Noten zum Surrealismus’, in Assmann, A., Assmann, J., Hartwich W.-D. & Meeninghaus, W. (eds) Vom Kult zur Kultur: Bausteine zu einer Kritik der historischen Vernunft, Fink, Munich.

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