The Stirrings of a Stubborn and Difficult Freedom: Assimilation, Education, and Levinas’s Crisis of Humanism

<p><span>In several places, Levinas identifies the problem that concerns him as a</span><span>&nbsp;&ldquo;</span><span>crisis of humanism.&rdquo;&nbsp;<span>&nbsp;</span>This problem finds its seeds in modernity but comes to fruition in the inhumanities of the 20</span><span>th&nbsp;</span><span>century. Like his philosophical predecessors, Levinas offers an educational model as a solution to a problem he has identified.&nbsp;<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>But this model--Jewish education&mdash;is uniquely different from those offered by those who came before him.&nbsp;</span><span class="x_">This essay examines Levinas&lsquo;s interest in Jewish education as a solution to this crisis in humanism and considers what the implications of this solution are for his project as a whole.</span>