The Marvel of Relatedness

This book is an invitation to discover the loftiness of a dialogical life, as eminently described by Jewish dialogical thinkers. Dialogue engenders meaningful speech and time, generates common worlds and infuses us with the joy of creative inter-being. In populism living speech is repressed, while in interconnectedness it is restored. 

Today’s emphasis upon the individual and her rights is a remedy against totalitarianism. The I is no longer a mere instance of collectivity. However, is identity imaginable without alterity? Can one be oneself without the other? Are self-development and self-realization the primal goals of life? 

The dialogical exercises presented here are a way to correct the loss of our sense of connectedness. They open a window to a meaningful life of vigilance and care for the other.

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Ephraim Meir is Professor Emeritus of modern and contemporary Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University and President of the International Rosenzweig Society. For several years he was the Levinas Guest Professor for Jewish Dialogue Studies and Interreligious Theology at the Academy of World Religions, University of Hamburg. In the second half of 2018 he was a research fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton. His books Old-New Jewish Humanism and Faith in the Plural previously appeared in Idra’s “Series of Interfaith Dialogues for Love and Peace.”