Since his petira in 1994, there has been a battle for and against naming a Jerusalem street after Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz. Barring any last minute surprises, the battle has finally come to an end and on Sunday, 28 Adar 5773, a street will be named in his memory. A final approval is still pending, but it appears this is more of a formality than a stumbling block. The street has not yet been selected, but it appears it will be one of the streets in the Hebrew University Givat Ram Campus.

The late professor was an outspoken individual, one who was the subject of much controversy and criticism due to his views on many issues, hence the 20-year battle over naming a street in his memory.

The following excerpts from Wikipedia tell a bit of his life and the controversy that surrounded the individual.

Leibowitz was an Orthodox Jew who held controversial views on the subject of Halacha. He wrote that the sole purpose of religious commandments was to obey G-d, and not to receive any kind of reward in this world or the world to come. He maintained that the reasons for religious commandments were beyond man’s understanding, as well as irrelevant, and any attempt to attribute emotional significance to the performance of mitzvot was misguided and akin to idolatry.

The essence of Leibowitz’s religious outlook is that a person’s faith is his commitment to obey G-d, meaning G-d’s commandments, and this has nothing to do with a person’s image of G-d. This must be so because Leibowitz thought that G-d cannot be described, that G-d’s understanding is not man’s understanding, and thus all the questions asked of G-d are out of place. Leibowitz claimed that a person’s decision to believe in G-d (in other words: to obey him) defines or describes that person, not G-d.

One result of this approach is that faith, which is a personal commitment to obey G-d, cannot be challenged by the usual philosophical problem of evil or by historical events that seemingly contradict a divine presence. When someone told Leibowitz that he stopped believing in G-d after the Holocaust, Leibowitz answered, “Then you never believed in G-d.” If a person stops believing after an awful event, it shows that he only obeyed G-d because he thought he understood G-d’s plan, or because he expected to see a reward. But “for Leibowitz, religious belief is not an explanation of life, nature or history, or a promise of a future in this world or another, but a demand.”

Leibowitz was a staunch believer in the separation of state and religion. He believed that mixing the two corrupted faith. He condemned the veneration of Jewish shrines, cynically referring to the Western Wall as the Discotel (a play on the words “discothèque” and “Kotel”).

In contrast to his strict views on some religious matters, he was surprisingly liberal in others. On the subject of homosexuality, for example, Leibowitz believed that despite the ban on homosexual relations in Judaism, homosexuals should do their best to remain observant Jews.

Leibowitz served as the editor of the Encyclopedia Hebraica in its early stages. Apart from his innumerable articles and essays, Leibowitz authored a wide range of books on philosophy, human values, Jewish thought, the teachings of Maimonides, and politics. Many of his lectures and discourses, including those given as part of the “Broadcast University” project run by Israeli Army Radio, were subsequently compiled and printed in book form. Leibowitz was a prolific letter-writer and his advice or comment was sought out widely. A first collection of his letters (in Hebrew) was published posthumously.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)