[Avodah] Tiqun Olam

[Michael Makovi]

By way of hakarat haTov, I might note that
--- Professor Wolfson's and Professor Kreisel's essays (op. cit.), along with
--- Rabbi Daniel Korobkins's Introduction 1 and Appendix A to his new
edition of the Kuzari (Feldheim), and along with
--- Professor Adam Shear's "The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish
Identity, 1167–1900"
(http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521885331),
all together served to make the Kuzari for me a living work of
religious and spiritual edification.

Before I saw these sources, my only window to the Kuzari was those of
my rabbis who, to use Professor Yaakov Elman's phrase,  turned the
Kuzari into something "desiccated and bereft of life".

Professor Elman's original context was speaking of fundamentalists and
dogmatists of the Oral Law, when he introduced me to Rabbi Moshe
Shmuel Glasner. Incidentally, Rabbi Glasner (thanks to Professor
Elman) reconciled me to the Talmud, and made the Talmud itself a
source of edification to me, whereas it - like the Kuzari - had been
"desiccated and bereft of life", according to the teachings of my
rabbis. What Graetz says of Rav Hirsch, I'd say of Rabbi Glasner; and
perhaps comparing myself to Graetz is rather apt.)

When I first learned the Kuzari on my own, it was in light of my own
rabbis' interpretation, which rendered the Kuzari into nothing more
than a wretched and puerile mass of ignorance and stupidity and
irrelevance. Thanks to Professors Wolfson, Kreisel, and Shear, and
Rabbi Korobkin, the Kuzari now actually has religious meaning for me.
Even if I disagree with it often, at least I'm now disagreeing with
something meaningful and intelligent.

On the other hand, the Kuzari's treatment of the Golden Calf was
simply brilliant. It turns out that Rabbi Jose Faur's "The Biblical
Idea of Idolatry"
(http://faur.derushapublishing.com/_The_Biblical_Idea_of_Idolatry_by_Jose_Faur.pdf)
is taken almost whole-cloth from the Kuzari, even though he cites the
Kuzari only once or twice. The only thing Rabbi Faur adds is a
brilliant refutation of academic claims that the Biblical Jews
believed in henotheism. Actually, he doesn't so much disprove
henotheism, as much as he proves that henotheism is a kosher Torah
belief for a frum Jew. (I don't believe the Kuzari would ever dare say
such a thing, and a few people have accused me of heresy for relying
on Rabbi Faur here, but I believe his arguments are true. See there.)
Rabbi Faur also adds a beautiful interpretation of Rabbi Eliyahu
Benamozegh's on the Golden Calf, which only reinforces the Kuzari's
thesis.

Michael Makovi