The Psychosomatic Ethics of the Psalms: Hermann Cohen and Hajim Steinthal’s “Sprachwissenschaft”

In this essay, the “ethics of the Psalms” is not a set of rules of conduct culled from textual interpretation. Central here is the impact of the psalms on the human being during prayer. In their use in liturgy, psalms are a mode of spoken lyrical poetry, a physical and mental event for the individual and the praying congregation. The gaze is directed toward God and the reorganization of ethical Reason desired in and by Him in the face of our all-too-human partiality. My systematic starting point is Hermann Cohen’s Jewish philosophy and Hajim Steinthal’s linguistics.