A Crisis of Legitimacy: Jewish Orthodoxy’s Controversy over Max Weber’s Neutralization of Social Science

The purpose of this essay is twofold: first, to describe two waves of Jewish Orthodoxy’s reception of the idea of social science’s neutralization and, second, to explain why this rather technical question has been a source of both perplexity and inspiration for Orthodox thinkers. The essay illustrates the connection between social science’s neutrality and broader Orthodox concerns regarding the crises of legitimacy of both secular and religious public spheres. The first wave of Orthodoxy’s controversy took place around World War I and during the Weimar era, when two Orthodox thinkers, Isaac Breuer and Ernst Simon, exhibited a significant interest in Max Weber’s methodological writings and firmly resisted them from competing directions. The second wave, which took place in the young State of Israel, is marked by the endorsement of science’s neutrality by both Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Abraham Wolff, yet leading these thinkers to opposing conclusions. The essay reads the changes in Orthodox positions against the backdrop of broader, non-Orthodox German discussions regarding the crisis of legitimacy.