Emmanuel Levinas by Doukhan Abi;

Author:Doukhan, Abi;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2012-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

6

A Metaphysics of Exile

Introduction

A connection between spirituality and exile is not alien to the Western tradition. Already in the Greek gnostic spiritualities, of which Plotinus is the central intellectual figure, exile is understood as the soul’s plight in this world, exiled from its origin, the One.1 This exile is to be overcome through spiritual means and diverse spiritual techniques are developed to help the soul’s migration back to its origin. In the Greek context, exile thus is seen as a negative concept, as a lesser stage needed to be overcome by a return to the origin. Although exile constitutes a central moment of the spiritual journey in Greek spirituality, it is in a purely negative sense, as an obstacle to spirituality, as a separation from God,2 rather than as a way or orientation to Him. Thus, far from advocating exile as a means of approaching God, the Greeks advocate the return, the migration back to the soul’s origin.

Levinas comments on this negative view of exile in Greek metaphysics: “Metaphysics would endeavor to suppress separation, to unite; the metaphysical being should absorb the being of the metaphysician. The de facto separation with which metaphysics beings would result from an illusion or a fault. As a stage the separated being traverses on the way of its return to its metaphysical source, a moment of history, that will be concluded by union, metaphysics would be an Odyssey, and its disquietude nostalgia. But the philosophy of unity has never been able to say whence came this accidental illusion and fall” (TI 102). The spiritual journey according to Greek metaphysics is structured as an Odyssey, within which the exile is a transitory and lesser stage that must be overcome by a return and union back with the metaphysical source or the One. For Greek metaphysics, exile is nothing but an “accidental illusion and fall.”

It is this description of exile as an “accidental illusion and fall,” that Levinas will critically engage and interrogate. Must exile be understood in the solely pejorative terms of “illusion” and “fall,” as a lesser state and separation from God? Is not an alternative understanding of exile, a positive understanding, possible? One that sees in exile not a fallen act of separation, but, far to the contrary, precisely an orientation toward God, toward what Levinas terms the Infinite? This positive understanding of exile is not alien to the Hebrew mindset which perceived, behind the shame and suffering of exile, a redemptive orientation.3 It is against such a background that Levinas’ positive understanding of exile must be understood.

This chapter will endeavor to understand Levinas’ concept of exile as it applies to spirituality. Far from obstructing spirituality, we shall attempt to show that, for Levinas, exile constitutes the way to God, to the Infinite. According to Levinas, “it is necessary to cease interpreting separation as pure and simply diminution of the Infinite, a degradation. Separation with regard to the Infinite, compatible with the Infinite, is not a simple ‘fall’ of the Infinite” (TI 103).

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