Maimonide negli Stati Uniti. Alla ricerca di un razionalismo teologico-politico

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.