Back to our roots: humanism in progress everywhere

Yeshayahu Leibowitz was born in Riga in 1903 & brought up in a home which belonged, to "a Jewish world in which Judaism & European culture were interwoven." He received his elementary education at home, where he continued his Jewish studies after entering secondary school ...

During the civil war in Russia in 1919, the family fled to Berlin, where YL studied chemistry & philosophy at the University of Berlin, then one of the few great centers of scientific research. After receiving his doctorate in 1924, he spent several years at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and went on to study medicine at Koeln & Heidelberg. Because of anti-Semitic discrimination in the German universities after the Nazis came to power, he took his M.D. in Basel! In 1934 he arrived in Palestine, where he began teaching chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Very soon he came to be regarded as a brilliant teacher. Hundreds of students used to flock to his lectures on the physiological bases of mental processes ...

His teaching extended beyond the campus to teachers' enrichment courses, adult educate. Programs, & even youth groups. The subjects on which he lectured reflected the encyclopedic breadth of his interests. His appearances on tv & radio as teacher, lecturer, & commentator on the weekly reading of the Torah have brought him to wider audiences. Many Jerusalemites recall small study-groups that gathered regularly to study some classic text of Jewish thought under his direction. The discussion of one such group on Maimonides' introduction to his commentary on the mishnaicTractate Aboth has been published. It is a sample of the give-and-take of ideas which took place at such sessions ...

With these groups he has completed several cycles of study of the text of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed. After retirement from his academic post, he continued lecturing & conducting seminars at the university on the philosophy & history of science. The years of intensive teaching & research did not prevent him from constant engagement with public issues. His views were rarely popular with the general public & almost never met witnthe approval of the relevant establishments. This never daunted him. At timeshe even seemed to enjoy outraging his audiences: in retrospect, he could claim much greater foresight than his antagonists ...

THAT's what really mattered: 'the rest' is happening NOW!