ABSTRACT
A tension of opposites conditions everything that Simone Weil was and wrote. A philosopher, she was drawn to physical labor. A Jew, she was drawn to Catholicism. A Catholic, she would not be baptized. Suspicious of the growth of individualism and the related loss of collective values, her writings constantly return to her own remarkable personality. The Marxist activist became one of the outstanding religious thinkers of her time, and this, in turn, deepened her sociopolitical ideas. Interest in her work has grown steadily since her death. Perhaps no other figure has written more impressively on both the individual in society and the individual and God.
