ABSTRACT
In the introduction to Part III Rosenzweig introduced the image of a perpetually burning six pointed star – i.e., a Koch curve or a MAGEN DAVID (shield of David) – as the final picture of everything together as a whole. The six points from which the star is constructed are the three elements (God, the world, and the human) and the three courses between them (creation, revelation, and redemption). The star itself is divisible into an interior and an exterior. The interior is the unchanging, constantly burning collective core, and the exterior are the constantly changing, perpetually generated individual rays of light that endlessly expand into the encompassing dark void. The two parts of the star signify the two kinds of collectives formed by those to whom God has lovingly revealed himself, who have reached out to others in loving self revelation to bring them to the light of being a living soul. The image of the interior points to the eternal, undifferentiated collective of the Jewish people who were the subject of Book 1. Now Rosenzweig turns to the image of the exterior that points to the perpetually expanding collection of distinct individuals called Christians who are on the Christian way. This way, and only this way, because it is a motion through space, occupies time. Hence, the Christian way is not eternal, although it is perpetual, since its end, eternity, is an asymptotic end, for it will not be reached in the infinite extension of time, but will only be fulfilled when time itself ends. Rosenzweig calls this way ‘the eternity of realization’ (die Ewigkeit der Verwirklichung).
