Ricerc@Sapienza

Spatial Metaphors of the Conjunction «And» in the Star of Redemption · In this paper I will
attempt to illustrate how the conjunction ‘and’ also appears in spatial ‘forms’ in Rosenzweig’s principal work : the and is implicit and at times made explicit through certain used figures, indebted to geometrical or mathematical semantics yet not confined by the rigidities of abstraction. These figures aim paradoxically toward a close link with the tangible dimension of experience – in other words, life. Indeed, the structure of the book reveals three passage sections which may be interpreted as structural conjunctions of The Star of Redemption’s architectural composition, but equally as metaphorical conjunctions leading « toward life ». Between Part One and Part Two we find the section entitled Transition (Übergang) ; between Parts Two and Three there is a Threshold (Schwelle) ;
and between Part Three and its outlet – “life”, according to the last word of the book and of its author – we find Gate (Tor). Corresponding to these three titles which indicate places of topological transition, are then three sections, or rather inter-sections, that give a rhythm to the contents page and to the author’s inspiration as structural conjunctions and metaphorical conjunctions of the thematic discourse. For in their contents as well as their form and titles, these parts refer to other spatial metaphors, still considered as conjunctions but this time between elements (God, man, the world),
between the three movements (Creation, Revelation, Redemption) and between all of them, invariably referring to space – whether geometrical space (flat or solid), Cartesian space, cosmic space, etc. There is, for example, the orbit, the circle, the hyperbola, the ‘figure’, i.e. the six-pointed star formed by two inverted and crossed equilateral triangles, figures that will be specifically studied here. However – and paradoxically –, Rosenzweig employs these metaphors (at the head of these parts/inter-sections or within them) to explain his philosophical system and thinking while in some way attempting to de-mathematise the same figures that are used, since his sights are always set on the dimension of becoming, of experience – that is, the dimension of time.