Religion and Spiritualism

2509 Submissions

[2] ai.viXra.org:2509.0017 [pdf] submitted on 2025-09-07 02:51:18

From Jerusalem to Leipzig: Moses Mendelssohn, the Haskalah, and the Intellectual Inheritance of His Family

Authors: Hamid Javanbakht
Comments: 12 Pages.

Moses Mendelssohn (1729—1786), known as the "German Socrates," emerged as one of the foremost philosophers of the Enlightenment and the initiator of the Jewish Enlightenment (*Haskalah*). In works such as Phädon (1767) and Jerusalem (1783), he articulated a vision of Judaism as a rational religion grounded in practice rather than dogma, while advancing a powerful defense of religious toleration and liberty of conscience. This essay examines Mendelssohn’s philosophical project in the context of Enlightenment thought and explores how his legacy extended beyond his lifetime through the cultural, musical, and scientific achievements of his children and grandchildren. From his defense of Judaism in Jerusalem to the revival of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Leipzig by Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, the Mendelssohn family became a microcosm of modern European intellectual life. By tracing this intellectual inheritance, the essay highlights both the promises and tensions of Enlightenment modernity for Jewish identity and European culture.
Category: Religion and Spiritualism

[1] ai.viXra.org:2509.0006 [pdf] submitted on 2025-09-02 03:45:15

Divine Absence and Moral Collapse: Four Visions of Modernity

Authors: Hamid Javanbakht
Comments: 13 Pages.

This paper investigates the existential crisis of divine absence as interpreted by Friedrich Nietzsche, Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Franz Kafka. Drawing on William Hubben’s comparative study, Four Prophets of Our Destiny, the paper argues that these thinkers offer four distinct responses to the collapse of traditional religious authority and the moral disorientation of modernity. Nietzsche’s genealogy dismantles theological morality in favor of self-created values and the will to power. Kierkegaard reclaims the absurd through a paradoxical leap of faith, redefining guilt as existential despair before the divine. Dostoevsky confronts the problem of suffering and moral freedom through narratives of rebellion, grace, and redemptive love. Kafka renders the divine as an absent and inaccessible authority whose silence gives rise to a universe of unexplained guilt and metaphysical bureaucracy. Together, these authors articulate a spectrum of modern responses to the eclipse of divine perfection, forming a shared prophetic vision of human destiny in a post-theistic age.
Category: Religion and Spiritualism