The Second Coming of Yeshayahu Leibowitz Avi Steinberg

During his life, Leibowitz’s status in Israeli culture was that of both hero and pariah. A renowned scientist—he was head of the Biological Chemistry Department at Hebrew University—Leibowitz also made a name for himself as an idiosyncratic social critic and religious thinker.

An Orthodox Jew, Leibowitz is known primarily for his religious writings and for his scathing critique of Israeli values and national policy. His remarks shortly after the 1982 Invasion of Lebanon to the effect that certain actions of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon evinced of the existence of a “Judeo-Nazi” mentality, provoked a storm of reaction. Notwithstanding the common assumption that rhetoric of this sort betrayed an anti-Zionist stance,[1] Leibowitz repeatedly affirmed his belief in the validity of the Zionist endeavor both in his writings and in conversations to the end of his life.

Leibowitz also had a controversial view in relation to Jewish Law. He wrote that the only purpose for doing Mitzvot is that God wants it. He disagreed with the view that Halakhah should be followed either for reward in the World to Come or because it may benefit us in this world. The reasons for the laws cannot be discerned and are irrelevant to us. Christianity, Kabbalah and other religious movements stressing emotional attachment in the performance of Mitzvot are, thus, misleading and akin to idolatry.