Emil Fackenheim – The 614th Commandment and the Open Dialectic (1967-1982)
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Why Fackenheim Now?
After the ethical question (Levinas: can one still totalize after Auschwitz?) and the theological question (Jonas: can one still believe in God after Auschwitz?), the practical-political question arises: how should one live after Auschwitz?
Emil Fackenheim gives an answer that stays closer to Hegel than Levinas or Jonas: he holds fast to dialectic – but as open dialectic. Reconciliation is not guaranteed, but it is a task. History has no necessary direction, but it has an obligation. This is neither optimism nor despair, but active hope.
We treat Fackenheim after Jonas, because he practically turns his theology of powerlessness: if God is powerless, we must be powerful. If history does not automatically lead to the good, we must lead it to the good. Fackenheim transforms theology into practice.
Intellectual-Historical Framing: Who Is Fackenheim? To What Is He Reacting?
Emil Ludwig Fackenheim was born in 1916 in Halle an der Saale, the son of an orthodox Jewish cantor. He studied in Berlin at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums – the only institution where Jews were still allowed to study after 1933. On November 9, 1938, during Kristallnacht, he was arrested and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.[1]
The Rescue: after three months he was released – on condition that he leave Germany immediately. He emigrated to Great Britain, then in 1940 to Canada. In Canada he studied philosophy, earned a doctorate on medieval Arabic philosophy, and from 1948 taught at the University of Toronto.
The Turning Point: in 1967, during the Six-Day War, Fackenheim experienced an existential crisis. Israel seemed threatened with annihilation – and Fackenheim realized: the Shoah is not over. The question “How should one live as a Jew after Auschwitz?” is not historical, but a present question.[2]
In an article “Jewish Faith and the Holocaust” (1968), Fackenheim coined the formula of the 614th commandment – in addition to the 613 commandments of the Torah there is a new commandment, arising from Auschwitz itself. This formula made him famous and controversial.
The Late Systematization: his main work “To Mend the World: Foundations of Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought” (1982) develops this intuition systematically. It is a difficult, learned book – engaging with Hegel, Heidegger, Rosenzweig, Buber, Arendt. Fackenheim writes as a philosopher, but with existential urgency.[3]
In 1983 Fackenheim emigrated to Israel – a consistent decision: the 614th commandment demanded Jewish survival, and Israel was for him the place of this survival. He died in Jerusalem in 2003.
The Steelman Position: The 614th Commandment and Tikkun
The 614th Commandment – The Jewish Duty after Auschwitz
Fackenheim’s most famous formulation (1967):
“Jews are forbidden to grant Hitler posthumous victories. They are commanded to survive as Jews, lest the Jewish people perish. They are commanded to remember the victims of Auschwitz, lest their memory perish. They are forbidden to despair of humanity and its world […] and to take refuge in either cynicism or otherworldliness, lest they help to make the world a place fit for Auschwitz. They are, finally, forbidden to despair of the God of Israel, lest Judaism perish.”[4]
This is not a commandment of comfort, but a commandment of resistance. It does not say: “Everything will be fine.” It says: “You shall ensure that Hitler does not win – even posthumously.”
The Four Dimensions of the Commandment:
1. Surviving as Jews: not simply biological survival, but Jewish life. Assimilation, disappearing into the majority society, would be a posthumous victory for Hitler. The commandment demands: remain who you are.
2. Remembrance: commemorating the murdered is a duty. Not trauma-processing in the sense of forgetting, but keeping awake. The dead have a right not to be forgotten.
3. No despair: Auschwitz shows: the world can be appalling. But the conclusion must not be: cynicism, nihilism, withdrawal. That would be capitulation. The commandment demands: remain in the world, change it.
4. Holding fast to God: not naive belief (how could one believe naively after Auschwitz?), but defiant belief. God was silent – but we are not silent. This position is paradoxical – but consciously so.
Tikkun – The Repair of the Broken World
Fackenheim takes up the Kabbalistic concept of Tikkun – “repair of the world.” In Kabbalah (Isaac Luria, sixteenth century), Tikkun is the process by which the divine sparks scattered at creation are gathered and returned.[5]
Fackenheim secularizes this concept: Tikkun after Auschwitz does not mean mystical restoration, but practical work. The world is broken – more radically through Auschwitz than ever before. The task is: to make it whole again.
But – and this is decisive – this repair is not guaranteed. Tikkun is a task, not a certainty. There is no guarantee that the repair will succeed. There is not even certainty that the world is repairable. But the commandment remains: try it.
This is Fackenheim’s transformation of Hegel’s dialectic: in Hegel, reconciliation is necessary – the world spirit necessarily develops toward freedom. In Fackenheim, reconciliation (Tikkun) is possible, but not guaranteed. It depends on human practice.
The Engagement with Hegel
In “To Mend the World” (1982) Fackenheim explicitly engages with Hegel – admiring and criticizing at once.[6]
What Fackenheim Admires in Hegel:
Dialectic as method: Fackenheim values Hegel’s insight that contradictions are not simply errors, but the engine of development. Negation is not merely destructive, but can be productive – it drives toward higher synthesis.
Recognition: the master-slave dialectic shows that self-consciousness arises only through recognition of the Other. This insight is fundamental – especially after Auschwitz, where total non-recognition prevailed.
Mediation: Hegel’s critique of immediate intuition, of mere feeling, of unreflected myth – all of this remains valid. One cannot simply go “back” to immediacy.
What Fackenheim Criticizes:
The necessity of reconciliation: Hegel’s sentence “The actual is rational” implies: what happened had to happen. After Auschwitz this is unbearable. Auschwitz was not necessary, not rational, not sublatable into a higher synthesis.
The teleology of history: Hegel sees history as the unfolding of world spirit toward the self-consciousness of freedom. But Auschwitz shows: history can also lead to the annihilation of freedom. There is no guarantee of progress.
The subsumption of the individual: in Hegel the individual is ultimately a “moment” of the whole – of the family, of society, of the state, of world spirit. But the six million murdered are not moments of a higher whole. They are irreducible individuals, whose death cannot be sublated.
The “Open Dialectic” – Fackenheim’s Alternative
Fackenheim develops the concept of an open dialectic – a dialectic that does not know where it leads, but nevertheless has a direction:
Openness: the future is not predetermined. There is no guarantee that the good will win. History can also fail – as Auschwitz shows.
But direction: there is nevertheless a normative orientation – toward Tikkun, toward repair, toward reconciliation. This orientation is not factual (what is), but normative (what should be).
Practice as mediation: dialectic is not enacted automatically (as with Hegel’s world spirit), but through human practice. We must negate the negation, we must create the synthesis, we must repair.
Broken reconciliation: if reconciliation succeeds, then not as harmonious synthesis (as with Hegel), but as broken reconciliation – one that does not forget the wound, does not sublate the suffering, does not make the dead into a moment.
Sublation I: What Is True in Fackenheim’s Position?
Fackenheim grasps something decisive that Levinas and Jonas do not sufficiently thematize: the practical dimension. After Auschwitz, not only theoretical reflection is necessary (Levinas) or theological reorientation (Jonas), but practical action.
The Connection Between Remembrance and Future
The 614th commandment connects backward (remembrance of the victims) and forward (responsibility for the future). It is neither only mourning nor only hope, but both at once.
This connection is philosophically significant: it shows that history is not only the past (which we must explain) or the future (which we want to shape), but a task in the present. The past (Auschwitz) obligates us for the future (never again).
The Rejection of Despair and Cynicism
After Auschwitz, despair would be understandable: the world has shown what it is capable of. Why still hope? But Fackenheim says: despair is forbidden – not because it is irrational, but because it gives Hitler his due.
This ethical position is remarkable: it is neither naive optimism (which denies what happened) nor tragic pessimism (which capitulates). It is active hope – hope against all evidence, hope as resistance.
The Transformation of Dialectic
Fackenheim shows: one can still think dialectically after Auschwitz – if one transforms dialectic. Not as a closed system (Hegel), not as pure negativity (Adorno, in the previous chapter), but as an open task.
The “open dialectic” is an important concept: it preserves the structure of dialectic (negation, mediation, sublation), but gives up certainty. It is dialectic in the mode of hope, not of certainty.
Sublation II: The Inner Contradictions Emerge
As convincing as Fackenheim’s practical philosophy is – it too falls into contradictions reminiscent of the aporias of Levinas and Jonas.
First Contradiction: A Commandment That Sets Itself
The Problem: where does the 614th commandment come from? The 613 commandments of the Torah were revealed at Sinai – given by God. But the 614th commandment comes from Auschwitz itself – it is “the voice of God from Auschwitz” (as Fackenheim says).[7]
But this is paradoxical: if God was silent in Auschwitz (as Jonas says), how can a commandment of God come from Auschwitz? Is the 614th commandment really divine – or is it a human construction that presents itself as divine?
The Parallel to Kant’s Categorical Imperative: Kant says: the moral law is self-legislated – autonomy. But it nevertheless holds absolutely. Fackenheim’s 614th commandment is structurally similar: it is given post factum (after Auschwitz), but is supposed to hold absolutely nonetheless.
The question: can a commandment that is historically conditioned (necessary only after Auschwitz) be at the same time absolute? Fackenheim affirms this – but the tension remains.
Second Contradiction: The Commandment Is Reactive
The Problem: “You shall not grant Hitler a posthumous victory” – that is reactive. Jewish life is defined through demarcation from Hitler. Jewish identity is negatively determined: not to perish, not to forget, not to despair.
But an identity that is only reactive is unfree. It is determined by what it is against – not by what it is for. Hitler would then have won posthumously: not through annihilation, but through shaping Jewish identity.
The Question: can Jewish life after Auschwitz be positively defined – not only as resistance to Hitler, but as an independent project? Fackenheim gives no clear answer to this. The 614th commandment is formulated negatively (forbidden to…) – a positive determination is missing.
Third Contradiction: Tikkun Presupposes That There Was Once a Whole
The Problem: “Tikkun” means repair – restoring what was broken. But this presupposes: there was once something whole, intact, unharmed.
Was the world whole before Auschwitz? Or was Auschwitz the consequence of earlier breaks – of anti-Semitism, of nationalism, of imperialism, of the violence of modernity? If Auschwitz was not the first break, but the consequence of earlier breaks, then “Tikkun” is backward-looking – longing for a state that never existed.
The Alternative: not repair (back to something old), but new creation (forward to something new). But this would mean: Auschwitz is irreversible – the world afterward is different from the world before, and it cannot be “repaired,” only newly built.
Fackenheim senses this problem – he speaks of “broken reconciliation,” which does not forget the suffering. But the tension between “repair” and “irreparability” remains.
Fourth Contradiction: The Dialectic Remains Teleological
The Problem: even the “open dialectic” has a direction – toward Tikkun, toward reconciliation (even if not guaranteed). That is still teleology – a goal toward which history moves (or should move).
But is teleology still tenable after Auschwitz? If history does not necessarily lead to the good (as Fackenheim emphasizes), why should it have a direction at all? Perhaps history is contingent – without goal, without direction, without meaning.
Fackenheim would presumably answer: the direction is normative, not factual. It is not a description (this is how history is), but a demand (this is how it should become). But the question remains: on what basis does this demand rest, if not on a teleology?
Sublation III: Systematic Placement
Fackenheim shows: one can work with Hegel after Auschwitz – but only if one transforms the dialectic. Reconciliation is not given, but given up as a task. It is not fact, but task.
What Remains Productive?
The practice orientation: Fackenheim overcomes theoretical quietism. Not only thinking, lamenting, despairing – but acting. The 614th commandment is a mandate, not a comfort.
The open dialectic: the concept is important – a dialectic that does not know its future, that is dependent on human practice, that can fail. This is closer to reality than Hegel’s philosophy of necessity.
The rejection of nihilism: after Auschwitz, nihilism would seem natural – “nothing is true, nothing is good, everything is permitted.” Fackenheim shows: precisely after Auschwitz, ethics is more urgent than ever. Not because it is self-evident, but because its absence leads to catastrophe.
What Remains Problematic?
The reactive determination: Jewish life against Hitler – that is too little. A positive determination is missing.
The remaining teleology: even the “open” dialectic has a direction – toward Tikkun. That is still teleology, only an uncertain one.
The tension between repair and irreparability: can Auschwitz be “repaired”? Or is the world irreparably broken? Fackenheim wavers between both poles.
The Direction for a Contemporary Reception of Hegel
Fackenheim shows: Hegel is not obsolete after Auschwitz, but he must be transformed. The structure of dialectic (negation, mediation, sublation) remains indispensable – but the certainty of reconciliation must be given up.
The task: to develop a dialectic of practice – a dialectic that does not describe what will necessarily happen, but what we should do. A dialectic that does not guarantee that the good will win, but demands that we fight for it.
Hegel himself had approaches: the emphasis on freedom (not necessity), the insight into the resistance of experience (which does not simply dissolve into concepts), recognition as a practical task (not only a theoretical structure). These moments would need to be radicalized.
On Fackenheim’s biography: Michael L. Morgan: Fackenheim’s Jewish Philosophy: An Introduction, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014; David Patterson: Emil L. Fackenheim: A Jewish Philosopher’s Response to the Holocaust, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008. ↩︎
Emil L. Fackenheim: “Jewish Faith and the Holocaust: A Fragment” (1968), in: The Jewish Return into History, New York: Schocken, 1978, pp. 22–48. The Six-Day War of 1967 was existential for Fackenheim—he saw Israel threatened with destruction. ↩︎
Emil L. Fackenheim: To Mend the World: Foundations of Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought, New York: Schocken, 1982. ↩︎
Fackenheim: “Jewish Faith and the Holocaust” (1968), in: The Jewish Return into History, pp. 22–23. The most famous formulation of the 614th commandment. ↩︎
On the kabbalistic concept of Tikkun: Gershom Scholem: “Isaac Luria und seine Schule,” in: Die jüdische Mystik in ihren Hauptströmungen, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1957, pp. 273–316. Luria’s concept (16th century): at creation the vessels shattered, the divine sparks were scattered—Tikkun is their gathering. ↩︎
Fackenheim: To Mend the World, pp. 103–145 (chapter on Hegel). ↩︎
Fackenheim: “Jewish Faith and the Holocaust,” p. 23: “The commanding voice of Auschwitz.” ↩︎