The Star of Redemption

Franz Rosenzweig's main work, begun in 1918 while he served as a German soldier on the Balkan front, finished in early 1919 and published in 1921. It opens with the fear of death, which philosophy 'from Ionia to Jena' tried to dissolve into a single system of the All. Against this, Part One argues that God, world and human being are three separate elements that cannot be reduced to one another or to thought. Part Two describes how they enter into relation through three events: creation, which joins God and world; revelation, in which God's love speaks to the individual soul, read through the Song of Songs; and redemption, in which human love of neighbour carries the world toward completion. This part also develops Rosenzweig's speech-thinking, a philosophy grounded in living language and time. Part Three describes Judaism and Christianity as two complementary forms of eternity, the eternal life and the eternal way. The six terms together form the six points of a star.

It is one of the major works of twentieth-century Jewish thought, offering a philosophy that begins from mortality, love and dialogue rather than from abstract systems.