Being Jewish/ Reading Heidegger: An Ontological Encounter will be coming out in the spring, published by Fordham University Press.  Following is a brief description::

        Dominating Heidegger’s thought in the early twenties was the problem of how to think phenomenology “from the ground up”— that is from within the existential-historical situation of the individual human being—without reducing phenomenology to a glorified "philosophy of life" or “worldview.”  This problem was (and is) complicated by Heidegger's insistence that theology or religion is at the core of human being's existential search for meaning, and so must also be a prime constituent of any phenomenology. That theological concerns are near the center of Heidegger’s early hermeneutical phenomenology has become a commonplace in recent Heidegger scholarship:  But theology of what sort?  And how can any sort of theological interest be squared with an ontology Heidegger characterizes  as  "fundamental”? 
        This book investigates  "Being Jewish” not as a sectarian religiosity, but as a way of being-in-the-world peculiarly suited to understanding, and perhaps resolving some of the more perplexing hermeneutical and theological complications  of Heidegger's early phenomenology. At the core of "Being Jewish," the author argues, is an intimate, long-term engagement with “sacred texts,” which are taken as  grounding one’s very being. Seen from this perspective, " Being Jewish" is a way of life constituted as   a way of reading—a way of reading which is then transmitted to succeeding generations as a passionate teaching.   In the recently published 1924 course on Aristotle, Scult  finds Heidegger involved in a similarly passionate attempt to introduce his students to the practice of philosophy as a full-bodied personal engagement with Aristotle’s words. In the light of this similarity, rather than a cause for antipathy towards Heidegger because of his involvement with National Socialism, “Being Jewish” becomes the source of a hermeneutical affinity— even an intimacy—between Judaism as  a way of life, grounded in an intense interpretive relationship to a sacred text, namely the Torah; and Heidegger's view of philosophical practice, as a similarly intense interpretive relationship to what he considers to be the founding texts of Western philosophy, especially Aristotle. 
        But even beyond this rather strange parallel, the same intimate relationship between reader and text is shown to be implied in Heidegger’s own way of speaking, suggesting a kinship between philosophy—at least as Heidegger "speaks" it—and the reading and writing of sacred religious texts. In the course of accounting  for this kinship between philosophy and religion, the phenomenon of  "sacred text"  is taken beyond its conventional theological context, and is theorized as "rhetorical"— that is, as a particular  mode of speech, which lends itself to a profoundly implicative interpretive relationship between text and reader.  The words of a sacred text so deeply absorb the reader that he or she is led to hear in those words a "voice," whose purview transcends the worldliness of everyday human life.  The rhetorical capacity of sacred texts to arouse in readers this deep sense of having their identity bound to the words in a transcendent way discloses what might be called the ontological relationship between rhetoric and hermeneutics— between a certain way of speaking and a certain way of understanding.   In tracing out the dynamics of this relationship in Heideggerian and Jewish hermeneutics, Scult not only finds mutually enlightening points of contact  between the two, but also uncovers new ways of understanding how  Heidegger’s fundamental ontology is grounded in the lived experience of religion.

                                                    _______________________________

Allen Scult, who performs the "Being Jewish" of the title, teaches philosophy at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Early in his career, in addition to preparing to enter rabbinical school, he also studied Semitic languages and Bible at the University of Pennsylvania. The deeply engaged way of reading he learned during that period carries over to his present interest in the relationship between hermeneutics and the rhetoric of sacred texts. His publications include a co-authored book entitled Rhetoric and Biblical  Interpretation,  and numerous essays published in rhetoric and philosophy journals.

Questions and comments encouraged.  Please contact me at
allen.scult@drake.edu

Philosophical Fragments 
*WISDOM!*
PEDAGOGY
EXCHANGES
PHOTOS
 
.Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie. A lecture course that Heidegger taught at Marburg in 1924 entitled.GRUNDBEGRIFFE DES ARISTOTLES PHILSOPHIE the second half of which focuses primarily on a reading of Aristotle's Rhetoric. This set of lectures remains unpublished, untranslated, and relatively unread. I think it's a goldmine of ideas about the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric. 

I will publish bits and pieces in this space as I get the chance, along with my own comments, and hopefully, yours.
Here's the first installment:  THE OPENING MOMENTS OF SS  1924
 

 
COMMUNICATE WITH SCULT  at
allen.scult@drake.edu