The relationship between the philosophical ideas of Emmanuel Lévinas (1906-1995) and his religious background has been recently drawing much scholarly attention. The paper examines three levinasian key-concepts, doubtlessly based on the biblical verses: visage (face), me voici (here I am), and l'amour du prochain (neighbourly love).
Levinasian implication of visage, symbolising the otherness of the other, can be traced back to a handful of highly important biblical usages of panim (face), namely God's face, which only a selected few had a chance to gaze upon (ex. Moses, Jacob, and Gideon). Such usage is, however, scarce in number, and more than two thousand and one hundred other examples of panim in the Hebrew Bible do not correspond to, nor echo this levinasian concept.
Then, me voici, for the philosopher, represents a human responding wholeheartedly to the call of the other, and ready to serve as his hostage. This too rarely finds its biblical equivalent. In the five Books of Moses, the expression hinneni (me voici in French) is used twenty-two times: five of them may carry a levinasian connotation; thirteen, largest in number, signify the contrary, i.e., God-like figures who command and dominate, and the remaining four should not mean more than a simple ‘yes’ when addressed by another human. In all the five examples, seemingly echoed in levinasian discourse, hinneni is uttered by a human to God's call.
Levinasian understanding of neighbourly love agrees largely with the traditionally accepted meaning of Leviticus 19:18, but it deviates from the plain, and grammatically sound interpretation of the verse in two significant aspects: 1) its translation of kamokha: “[love your neighbour] as [this love] is yourself” (opposed to “love your neighbour as yourself”), and 2) ignoring the last two words of the verse: ani YHWH (“I am the Lord”). These are to testify, on the one hand, the central role of the neighbourly love in levinasian ethics, and, on the other hand, the lack of God's love in the philosopher's perspective as the basis for human loving care.
From these comparisons, I observe that levinasian human ethics are mostly, if not exclusively, molded out of the image of biblical figures responding to the divine, and that Lévinas, in speaking of human love, seems to be purposefully reticent on God's love enabling it. The philosopher eagerly encourages to love the Torah (teaching to love one's neighbour), and only through that could he maintain the hope to love his God.

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This paper concerns the historical realities of the Talmudic sages reflected in their midrashic interpretation on the meaning of the Biblical passages in the tractate Shabbat 88 a-b of the Babylonian Talmud. Summarizing the characteristics of the Talmudic discussions in four points following the approaches of E. Levinas, we assume that the sages were deeply concerned with the question whether the Torah was given forcefully by God or was accepted with the total commitment by the Israelites. This question, regarded as the difficult freedom by Levinas, was derived from the two Biblical passages opposing to each other in the Book of Exodus. It was seriously considered by two groups of the sages, firstly by R. Yohanan and the second generation of Palestinian Amoraim and then by Rava and the fourth generation of Babylonian Amoraim. It is highly probable that the attribute of total devotion of Moses was in reality recovered in Rava's commitment to the Torah and that the exegetical response of Rava was substantiated by his existential concern.

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This paper is the analysis of Jacob's story in the book of Genesis with special attention to the encounter with the divine being and brother in chapter 32 and 33. Buber analyzed the usage of specified words in these chapters by following his Leitwortstil (Leading Word style). This is, according to H. C. Askani, the most crucial discovery for the translation method of Buber and Rosenzweig. Sorted out by this method, the Leitwort begins with a blessing (Segen), follows with firstborn (Erstgeburt) and face (Antlitz) and also ends with a blessing. Jacob's story starts from his sinful act of depriving Esau of his blessing (Gen 27) and ends with the return of the blessing to Esau as a means of compensation (Gen 33). Jacob's story is constituted by the Leitwort and the purpose of this paper is to make the hidden meaning of this story clearer, through not only the Leitwort method, but also by the historical biblical interpretation.
In conclusion, the reconciliation between the divine and human in Gen 32 and 33 is a proof that, for the first time, Jacob was able to achieve the I-Thou relationship with God and Esau. Jacob achieved the turning from I-It to I-Thou, so that he was released from his sin, which he carried with the disgraceful name of Jacob (Fersenschleicher). A Face-to-face encounter with God should lead to death but Jacob emerges from this encounter alive. Levinas and Buber interpret this matter differently. On one hand, Buber suggests a turning from a sinful life (named as Jacob) to a new life (named as Israel) through the blessing of God. On the other hand, Levinas thinks God imposed the infinite responsibility on Jacob as the subordination to others and according to him this is the reason of God's choice of Jacob over Esau. Following the encounter with God's angel Jacob looked at the face of Esau as the face of God and followed his brother. Jacob's experience at Pniel made him a substitute of the other. Here he was subjected to a deep trauma. Survival of this trauma imparted him with the responsibility to the others. Therefore Jacob's change of name bound him with this inescapable responsibility to the others. This is the interpretation of the significance of the face-to-face encounter with God according to Levinas and Buber.

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