The Philosophy of Emil Fackenheim : From Revelation to the Holocaust

Addresses Fackenheim's early concern with revelation and traces how and why he moved to his later focus on the Holocaust. This books shows the deeper thought he developed about the Holocaust as an event which ruptured history: it brought about a change in the very structure of being. Thus, it changes how we view all things.

Fackenheim was one of the most philosophically serious, knowledgeable, and provocative contemporary Jewish thinkers.  His original focus as a philosophical theologian was mainly on revelation, but in his later work he concerned himself primarily with the wide-ranging  implications of the  Holocaust. In this book, Kenneth Hart Green examines Fackenheim''s intellectual trajectory and traces how and why he focused so intently on the Holocaust.  He explores the deeper thought that Fackenheim developed about the Holocaust, which he construed as a cataclysmic event that ruptured history and one that also brought about a change in the very structure of being. As Green demonstrates, the Holocaust, according to Fackenheim''s interpretation, changes how we view all things, from God to man to history. It also radically affects Judaism, Christianity, and philosophy, the major traditions that have shaped the Western world.