This research proposes the elucidation of the concepts coming from sources of the Jewish tradition in the work of Walter Benjamin. The task consists of investigating and explaining some of the aspects from Jewish theology that in different ways, sometimes more exposed and others in a more subterranean way accompany the texts of the Berlin author.
Far from the positions that are installed in the discussion of the primacy of the theological aspects in opposition to the materialistic aspects or vice versa, our reading, although understanding the reciprocal tension that subsists between both senses, does not settle there but rather tries to display the concepts of Jewish spirituality with the purpose of expanding the reading and understanding of certain themes in his work by combining conceptual analysis and historical contextualization. In particular, our interest presents its node in the imbrication between language, narration and justice that Benjamin installs in his reading of modernity.
The loss of experience is the hallmark of the beginning of modernity. The advance of technologies, the appearance of the printing press and with it the newspapers and the novel substantially modify the ways of conceiving time as well as the new means of transport alter the perception of distances and space. Benjamin and his generation of German Jews inhabit Mitteleuropa in the horror years of the first half of the 20th century. In the midst of an erratic life and exile, they share his view of horror and his concerns about the violent manifestations that
have come from the impetus of progress, from the unconditional effort for homologation and the insistence on classification.
It is against this horror and in line with concepts linked to Jewish spirituality, that Benjamin treasures the fabrics of an artisan narrative that calls for listening, being attentive, paying attention to the creatures that are part of the world, hearing the advice that the multiplicity of stories offer. His project resists the watertight ways in which history was told and urges us to tackle the task of remembering, of doing justice to what could not be; Renewing the world, Benjamin will say, is the instinct of the collector of old books whose act is linked to the encounter close to the origin.
The alliance of theology seems at first sight strange. But their mutual participation expands the limits of intelligibility for the understanding of language and history. The use of poetics is part of his political proposal saying that everything cannot be said. Language itself, the experience of language, of the multiplicity of languages, is the very expression of the impossibility of saying everything.
The organization of the text addresses in the first part aspects of the political historical context and a presentation of the sources and central concepts of the Jewish tradition. In the second part, the theme of evil and violence is analyzed. The third section focuses on language; the various chapters focus on the 1916 text, on the translation and finally on the narration linked to theological themes – with special attention to the figure of the Tzadik as a righteous man. The fourth and final part studies remembrance, the task of a collective memory as an act of justice with the pending past, Kafka’s essay, the concepts of Halacha and Hagadah, and the literature proposed by anthropological materialism.
