A spiritual life is not a luxury, but a necessity
Reference: Chalier, C. (1993). Pensées de l’éternité: Spinoza, Rosenzweig. Paris: Les éditions du Cerf.
Introduction: Things Can't Go On
Our time is characterized by a remarkable paradox. Never before has humanity possessed so much knowledge, technology, and resources, yet the sense of meaninglessness, anxiety, and exhaustion is rarely so great. We live in an age that can explain everything, but can no longer justify anything. Everything is possible, except meaning.
People today live in the moment. Pleasure, immediate gratification, and efficiency have become absolute priorities. Politics, economics, and even relationships are judged in the short term. What has no immediate use disappears. What doesn't yield returns becomes suspect. In such a world, the search for meaning is automatically silenced.
But one cannot live without meaning. Many have become aware that things cannot go on like this.
The Loss of the Eternal
What fundamentally characterizes our time is the loss of any orientation toward the eternal. There is no longer any absolute benchmark, no truth that transcends time, no purpose greater than the individual or the generation. Death becomes the definitive end of everything. What remains is a life clinging to the temporal, as if that could save us.
The result is a culture of consumption, distraction, and power. People seek affirmation in possessions, recognition, and control, but remain internally empty. They become increasingly dependent on stimuli and increasingly vulnerable to fear. Nihilism laughs at us: if everything ends, what is the point?
This emptiness is not without consequences. Without the eternal, people become slaves to their passions. This translates into aggression, war, ecological destruction, and a politics that sees no further than the next election. A humanity without a higher purpose cannot limit itself. All over the world, we see developments spiraling out of control.
The Need for Moral Emancipation
The great question, then, is: how can humanity elevate itself morally? How is a world possible without war, without structural violence, without a desire for destruction? Can we ever achieve a higher, more mature level of civilization?
History shows that progress in knowledge or prosperity is not enough for this. What is lacking is not technology, but orientation. Not power, but meaningfulness. Not an ideology, but a goal that transcends finitude.
True emancipation means liberation from the absolute grip of the temporal. It opens humanity to a horizon greater than its own life. That is what we call the eternal. With the eternal, humanity becomes free from fear of death and loss.
Spinoza: The Way of Reason
For Spinoza, this liberation lies in reason. Whoever understands the nature of things, who learns to control their passions and is guided by adequate ideas, can already in this life participate in eternity. Death then takes away nothing essential, because the spirit is not completely fused with the perishable body.
The wise man no longer lives in fear or illusion. He seeks no reward, no recognition, no power. His happiness lies in understanding and loving what is. This life is contemplative, free, and inviolable.
But Spinoza is realistic: the masses are not guided by reason. They follow their passions, believe demagogues, and become trapped in resentment and bitterness. Therefore, laws and institutions are necessary to curb the passions and enable peaceful coexistence.
Rosenzweig: The Path of Revelation
Rosenzweig chooses a different path. Not autonomous reason, but the Word is central. Man does not begin with himself; he is addressed. Meaning arises not through control, but through response.
Revelation means that the eternal enters time. God addresses humanity without losing his transcendence. The Word calls for love, responsibility, and sanctification of daily life. Humanity is not redeemed by knowledge alone, but by faithfulness to the commandments.
The Jewish people carry this promise from generation to generation. Not as ideology, but as life. Rituals, prayer, and study make every moment a response to the eternal. Thus, life in the world is not escaped, but transfigured. If eternal peace ever comes to the world, it will be thanks to the Jews and Christians who spread the Word, brought to the world through the Jews, throughout the world. Judaism and Christianity together form the only path to truth, justice, and love for all humanity.
The Other as the Key
What unites both thinkers is the insight that humanity cannot grant itself eternity. Whether understood as reason or as Word, it always comes from outside. From the Other.
Modern humanity has become trapped within the self. It revolves around itself, its rights, his desires, his fears. But a self that is alone suffocates. Only in openness to the Other—human or divine—does meaning arise.
This is also the core of true ethics: justice and charity are not conventions, but responses to a call that transcends us.
Politics and Spirituality
A society cannot live by procedures alone. Politics without a higher purpose degenerates into power struggles and cynicism. A statesman sees beyond the temporal; he acts in the light of what does not pass away.
The task of the state is therefore not to impose happiness, but to create the conditions in which people can pursue a life of wisdom and spirituality. Democracy is no coincidence in this: it is the regime that most curbs violence and allows room for freedom of thought and search.
Towards a Spiritual Age
A spiritual life is not an escape from the world. It is a life without violence, because it needs no goal outside itself. It is free from despair, because it does not expect everything from the temporal. It is hopeful because it is oriented toward the good that endures.
The tragedy of our time is not that people suffer, but that many no longer ask the question of meaning. Yet, the Word continues to resound, despite the noise of the world. Whoever asks the question of meaning discovers that their calling lies in what they can mean for the (suffering) other.
The future of humanity depends on its willingness to listen again. Humanity does not begin with itself. From birth, they are addressed. This means that life is essentially relational and not narcissistic. In this context, Levinas emphasizes responsibility, because being addressed by another means that the other makes an appeal to the one addressed. Listening and responding to this appeal makes the relationship with the other ethical. In how we interact with others—whoever they are and whatever their characteristics—is a response to the eternal. Without this eternal, life inevitably leads to meaninglessness, fear, and destruction, while a spiritual life is the only path to freedom, bliss already within one's lifetime, peace, and a promising future.
Whatever may happen in the 21st century, spirituality is more powerful than worldly power. The hopeless struggle between the world powers, with its potential apocalyptic consequences, will make the masses heed the call of the eternal. This is the vocation of Jews and Christians in the service of humanity. In Rosenzweig's terminology: the Jewish people are the burning core of the Star, and Christians are the rays that spread the Star's Light throughout the world. God, humanity, and the world will ultimately be united. That is the Kingdom of God.
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