Franz Rosenzweig

Uh, "I will be who I will be," perhaps the three most important words [chuckles] in the entire Torah.

Um, Franz Rosenzweig, for instance, uh, who did a translation of the Bible with Martin Buber, um, in his, um, kind of, uh, letters, uh, to g- their letters, their exchange of letters said that the only theology in the entire book, uh, the entire, uh, Bible, Tanakh, are these three words, um, Ehye asher Ehye.

So a, a lot depends, and I don't think we have time to go into how you translate, but let's, let's assume that it, that it is the future tense.

Um, some people take it as, um, a kind of a first-person, uh, imperfect, uh, or present tense, "I am who I am," uh, which is totally different theology than, "I will be who I will be." But let's just take, "I will be who I will be," which I think is, um, uh, is most kind of understood that way, um, in, in, in Jewish tradition, um, and Rashi's take on it.

...

Rosenzweig and others and, you know, even Heidegger can do some mystic- ism, and no one thinks they're-

[laughs]

... they're cranks or wackos because I think everything had just gone so poorly for humanity-

Gmar Hatima Tova.

It was the night of Kol Nidre in Berlin in the year nineteen thirteen, and a twenty-six-year-old graduate student named Franz Rosenzweig entered the synagogue knowing that his life was at a crossroads.

The son of a wealthy industrialist, Rosenzweig grew up with lots of exposure to classical German culture, but lacking in much Jewish knowledge or tradition.

One of his cousins had already converted to Christianity, figuring, perhaps not incorrectly, that it would require very little change on his part, just going to church on Christmas instead of synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, but otherwise living his life as he already did.