Sunday, April 26, 2009

I know myself in the other.

Here is a marvelous reflection on the nature of the Jewish-Christian relationship from the new Spengler First Things blog. God's beloved is not two peoples, but one; his passion is undivided for his divided children. Enjoy this little excerpt:

"The Christian-Jewish engagement is nothing, if it is not a matter of mutual Unheimlichkeit —a marvelous word that in the case of Freud’s essay is translated as “the uncanny,” but implies a kind of creepiness for which there is no real English cognate. If you step onto your morning train into the office, and someone gets out and walks by you who looks exactly like you, that is unheimlich. Meeting a Doppelgänger is unheimlich. God is the jealous (better translation: impassioned) bridegroom of Israel. When Israel, the physical descendants of Abraham and Sarah, makes eye contact with Israel, the People of God in the self-conception of the Christian Church (using Barth’s upper-case), it is unheimlich."

It is uncanny, indeed.

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