Sanctifying Our Choices: The Solution to the Paradox of Orthodoxy

by David Curwin

During his lifetime, Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz was regularly at the cen-ter of controversy. With unconventional philosophical and political views on nearly every subject, he was viewed as an iconoclast by some and a gadfly by others. This was certainly true in the Orthodox Jewish world. While committed to keeping the mitzvot as understood by Or-thodox Judaism (in fact, accepting the “yoke of the commandments” was the definition of Judaism for him), he challenged nearly every other belief. Almost 25 years have passed since his death in 1994. With no prominent heir apparent to his approach, he was truly sui generis. How-ever, is he still relevant? Many claim that his thought was full of contra-dictions and was often holistically incoherent. For them, without Leibowitz making headlines through his controversial statements, his voice is no longer pertinent to today’s issues. I will argue, however, that the paradoxes Leibowitz presented do not reflect logical inconsistencies of his own making, but rather expose the conflict embedded within Orthodox Judaism itself. Once we un-derstand the nature of that conflict, Leibowitz’s approach will be shown to be extremely relevant to the challenges Orthodoxy is facing in our generation.

20 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 3, 2019

About the author

David Curwin is an independent scholar, who has researched and published widely on Bible, Jewish thought and philosophy, and Hebrew language. His first book, “Kohelet – A Map to Eden” was published by Koren/Maggid in 2023. Other writings, both academic and popular, have appeared in Lehrhaus, Tradition, Hakirah, and Jewish Bible Quarterly. He blogs about Hebrew language topics at www.balashon.com. A technical writer in the software industry, David resides in Efrat with his wife and family.