Papers by Chiara Carmen Scordari
Utopie e messianismi nel pensiero ebraico, a cura di D. D'Amico, M. Giuliani, P. Vanini, 2023
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Religione e politica. Paradigmi, Alleanze, Conflitti, a cura di G. Nastasi et alii (Pisa: ETS), 2022
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Colloquia Humanistica 11 (2022) , 2022
This essay focuses on Joseph Soloveitchik's re-semantization and renewal of the Jewish concept of... more This essay focuses on Joseph Soloveitchik's re-semantization and renewal of the Jewish concept of messianism. In his view, the idea of Messiah is personified and, at the same time, deferred, as an allegory for ceaseless and ever-changing transformations, both individual and communitarian. Biblical personae endowed with a messianic impulse, such as Abraham, Esther, Mordecai, Tamar, and Ruth, are seen by Soloveitchik as eschatological and metahistorical figures, co-redeemers and co-creators with God, and models with whom human beings may identify. In this framework, particular attention will be paid to Soloveitchik's conception of midrashic hermeneutics, as an always open process of individual and collective self-knowledge and self-redemption; and to the dialectical opposition between "revealed world" and "hidden world" as the constitutive element of Soloveitchik's vision of the humanity-to-come.
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Materia giudaica Rivista dell'associazione italiana per lo studio del giudaismo XXV (2020) Giuntina, 2020
The story of Esther has been interpreted in many conflicting or diverging ways: a handbook of pol... more The story of Esther has been interpreted in many conflicting or diverging ways: a handbook of politics and theology; a portrait of «the instability and uncertainty that govern the fate of the Jews»; a comedy, a burlesque about courtly life in Persian empire. In opposition to the former queen Vashti, a static character, unwilling to accept a subordinate role within the courtly environment, Esther appears as a creative and dynamic agent, because of her being always the Other: the Other of man (Mordecai and Ahasuerus), of society (Persian court), and of Judaism (i.e., land-centered Judaism). Esther’s personality develops from passivity to activity. Thanks to her personal resources and to a dialectical relationship with Mordecai, she emerges from her initial concealment, submissiveness, and weakness, finally becoming the authoritative leader who saves her own community from annihilation. Taking into account contemporary scholars (like Joseph Soloveitchik, Yoram Hazony, Michael Fox, and Adele Berlin), this article focuses on Esther’s metamorphoses, understood as theological-political models of human behavior, both individual and social.
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Skenè. Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies 6.2, 2020
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«Materia Giudaica», 2019
This article compares the socio-political models patterned on the return to Sinai, as envisaged b... more This article compares the socio-political models patterned on the return to Sinai, as envisaged by Joseph Soloveitchik (1903-1993) and David Hartman (1931-2013). For Hartman, Sinai − the collective memory of the place to which man constantly returns − shapes halakhic hope and responsibility, urging to combine prophetical morality and political demands into a covenantal perspective. Whereas Hartman’s reflection is engagée in so far as it looks to the complexities of Israeli political reality as the background of a renewed Jewish Covenant, Soloveitchik understands the return to Sinai within a more existentialistic framework, bringing a blend of East European Jewry outlook and German philosophical tradition into the American debate. He aims at intellectual, spiritual, and identitarian resistance. Particular attention is paid to the complementarity between the Exodus experience and Sinai revelation; the transition from a covenant of fate into a covenant of mission; the interweaving between freedom, slavery, time-awareness, and storytelling.
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«Studi Fatti Ricerche», 2018
Italian Translation of Maimonides' Letter to Obadiah the Proselyte
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«Materia Giudaica», 2018
This article focuses on Maimonides’ models of human perfection, in the light of the scholarship o... more This article focuses on Maimonides’ models of human perfection, in the light of the scholarship of the last fifty years (Joseph Soloveitchik, David Hartman, Aviezer Ravitzky, Kenneth Seeskin, and Menachem Kellner). In the Guide of the Perplexed and, especially, in the Mišneh Torah, Maimonides sketches four models of human excellence: Adam, Abraham, Moses and Rabbi Akiba. These models reveal a tension between opposing poles: the prophetic perfection, out of the reach of man, and the sense of finitude and fallibility; the silence of contemplation and the sense of responsibility towards one’s community. The result is an anthropology of human finitude and a communal philosophy, in which Maimonides attempted to portray the post-Edenic man, forced to live in a peculiar “exile”, different from the historical one of Israel.
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in C. Basile (ed.), I filosofi e la politica. Teoria e pratica a confronto, (Pisa: ETS), 2017
This article is centered on (i) the messianic view displayed in the Epistle to Yemen; and on (ii)... more This article is centered on (i) the messianic view displayed in the Epistle to Yemen; and on (ii) the ‘logic of suffering’ adopted by Maimonides in the Iggeret, as opposed to the ‘logic of action’ of the Mishneh Torah (as emphasized in David Hartman’s commentary). Maimonides is the empathic advisor for the broken Yemenite community, to the point of identifying with its suffering. Small wonder, thus, that in the Epistle, Maimonides’ messianism take an earthly face: its task is to respond here and now to the hardships of exile, oppression, and persecution. Particularly, I focus on Maimonides’ philosophy of history (following Joel L. Kraemer’s interpretation), useful to understand the role of Christianity and Islam in the Days of Messiah.
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in G. Garfagnini e A. Rodolfi (eds.), «Scientia humana» e «scientia divina». Conoscenza del mondo e conoscenza di Dio, (Pisa: ETS), 2016
This article focuses on Maimonides’ political philosophy (and theology of history), taking the cu... more This article focuses on Maimonides’ political philosophy (and theology of history), taking the cue from his interpretations of Jacob’s dream (Gen. 28, 12-14), as presented in Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah (7, 3), in the Epistle to Yemen, and in the Guide (Introduction; I, 15, II, 10). Key-themes (such as the nature of prophecy, messianic redemption, and our knowledge of physical and metaphysical realities) are addressed by comparing Maimonides’ approach to Midrashic and Talmudic traditions, to the ‘Platonism’ of al-Fārābi, and to ibn Bājja’s ideal of solitary life. Finally, Maimonides’ Jacob (a philosopher and prophet) is put vis-à-vis Yehudah ha-Lewi’s Jacob: the last single individual who was in direct contact with the divine power, before begetting the Twelve Tribes.
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Book Reviews by Chiara Carmen Scordari
«Materia Giudaica», 2018
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Other by Chiara Carmen Scordari
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Conference Presentations by Chiara Carmen Scordari
A workshop on contemporary re-readings of Maimonides, to be held in Pisa, wednesday, april 5, 2017
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Books by Chiara Carmen Scordari
Carocci, 2023
Nelle sue riletture esistenziali, Mosè Maimonide (1138-1204) traduce gli antichi episodi biblici ... more Nelle sue riletture esistenziali, Mosè Maimonide (1138-1204) traduce gli antichi episodi biblici in dinamiche di crisi e di scelta dell’essere umano di ogni tempo. L’errore di Adamo, le sofferenze di Giobbe, la prova estrema di Abramo con Isacco sul monte Moria si ripresentano in noi come sfide filosofiche, fatte di contrasti e fallimenti ma anche di riparazioni e riconciliazioni. Adamo è figura di mediazione tra polarità corporee e mentali, in un’arte del buon governo di sé e degli altri che prepara un’umanità futura; il doloroso percorso di Giobbe non è un crudele esperimento psicologico divino, ma un teatro interiore, un processo di autoterapia e autotrasformazione; infine, Abramo, scopritore solitario del monoteismo, lambisce un sacrificio abissale e contraddittorio attraverso cui purificare la sua concezione di Dio. L’Abramo multidimensionale di Maimonide è stato approfondito anche da autori del Novecento, come Joseph Soloveitchik, che ne hanno fatto un ideale trans- storico di eticità e progettualità futura, attraverso cui rieducare un’umanità sempre più fragile e smarrita.
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Morcelliana, 2019
È possibile interrogare un pensatore del XII secolo riguardo a istanze contemporanee di libertà d... more È possibile interrogare un pensatore del XII secolo riguardo a istanze contemporanee di libertà di coscienza e pluralismo religioso e ricavarne modelli per comprendere il presente? Dagli anni Sessanta del secolo scorso fino a oggi, molti autori statunitensi di ambiente sia accademico sia rabbinico – quali Joseph Soloveitchik, Marvin Fox, Steven Schwarzschild, David Hartman, Menachem Kellner e Kenneth Seeskin – hanno proposto riletture impegnate, se non “militanti”, di Mosè Maimonide (1138-1204). Superando l’interpretazione di Leo Strauss, hanno attualizzato la filosofia di Maimonide per affrontare questioni centrali oggi, come la dialettica tra universalismo etico e particolarismo nazionale o tra umanità, comunità e individuo. Al lettore del filosofo ebreo si propone un percorso ermeneutico di sintesi spirituale, un’integrazione tra ortodossia e laicità, Gerusalemme e Atene, in cui «il perplesso non può che stare nel mezzo».
The book aims at offering a critical outline of the many forms of contemporary Maimonidean scholarship in the US. The research is divided into three sections. The first one (From Europe to the United States: A Translatio Studiorum) aims at investigating the connection between these neo-Maimonideanisms and the transfer of ideas and institutions between Europe and the United States/Israel in the decades following the Second World War. These returns to Maimonides reveal also an interweaving with two models of reading: the ethical rationalist model sketched by Hermann Cohen and the reductionist and "esoteric" approach of Leo Strauss. The second part (Between Ethical Rationalism and Socio-political Theology) draws a map of the contemporary re-readings of Maimonides, focusing especially on Kenneth Seeskin's "theology of separation"; the "way of integration" between Athens and Jerusalem sketched by David Hartman; Menachem Kellner's new perspectives on messianism, identity, and chosenness. The third section (Community, Human Perfection, and Messianism) offers three possible paths through Maimonides' work, putting these manifold voices – and my own – in dialogue. A series of Maimonidean key-issues are addressed: the ideal of human perfection, as embodied by the patriarchs and Moses, the nature and the role of the community in Maimonides' responsa, the clash between Jewish particularism and universalism, Israel's chosenness, and redemptive future.
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Papers by Chiara Carmen Scordari
Book Reviews by Chiara Carmen Scordari
Other by Chiara Carmen Scordari
Conference Presentations by Chiara Carmen Scordari
Books by Chiara Carmen Scordari
The book aims at offering a critical outline of the many forms of contemporary Maimonidean scholarship in the US. The research is divided into three sections. The first one (From Europe to the United States: A Translatio Studiorum) aims at investigating the connection between these neo-Maimonideanisms and the transfer of ideas and institutions between Europe and the United States/Israel in the decades following the Second World War. These returns to Maimonides reveal also an interweaving with two models of reading: the ethical rationalist model sketched by Hermann Cohen and the reductionist and "esoteric" approach of Leo Strauss. The second part (Between Ethical Rationalism and Socio-political Theology) draws a map of the contemporary re-readings of Maimonides, focusing especially on Kenneth Seeskin's "theology of separation"; the "way of integration" between Athens and Jerusalem sketched by David Hartman; Menachem Kellner's new perspectives on messianism, identity, and chosenness. The third section (Community, Human Perfection, and Messianism) offers three possible paths through Maimonides' work, putting these manifold voices – and my own – in dialogue. A series of Maimonidean key-issues are addressed: the ideal of human perfection, as embodied by the patriarchs and Moses, the nature and the role of the community in Maimonides' responsa, the clash between Jewish particularism and universalism, Israel's chosenness, and redemptive future.
The book aims at offering a critical outline of the many forms of contemporary Maimonidean scholarship in the US. The research is divided into three sections. The first one (From Europe to the United States: A Translatio Studiorum) aims at investigating the connection between these neo-Maimonideanisms and the transfer of ideas and institutions between Europe and the United States/Israel in the decades following the Second World War. These returns to Maimonides reveal also an interweaving with two models of reading: the ethical rationalist model sketched by Hermann Cohen and the reductionist and "esoteric" approach of Leo Strauss. The second part (Between Ethical Rationalism and Socio-political Theology) draws a map of the contemporary re-readings of Maimonides, focusing especially on Kenneth Seeskin's "theology of separation"; the "way of integration" between Athens and Jerusalem sketched by David Hartman; Menachem Kellner's new perspectives on messianism, identity, and chosenness. The third section (Community, Human Perfection, and Messianism) offers three possible paths through Maimonides' work, putting these manifold voices – and my own – in dialogue. A series of Maimonidean key-issues are addressed: the ideal of human perfection, as embodied by the patriarchs and Moses, the nature and the role of the community in Maimonides' responsa, the clash between Jewish particularism and universalism, Israel's chosenness, and redemptive future.