Alexandre Leone
Alexandre Leone holds a PhD in Philosophy and in Hebrew Language, Literature, and Jewish Culture from FFLCH-USP, where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Philosophy. He earned a Master of Arts in Jewish Philosophy and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), as well as a Master’s in Hebrew Language and a Bachelor’s in Social Sciences from USP.
Currently, he serves as Rabbi of the Beit Midrash Massoret Association (São Paulo) and as a Professor at the Instituto Universitario Isaac Abarbanel in Buenos Aires. Additionally, he is a collaborating researcher at FFLCH-USP, affiliated with the Department of Oriental Languages and the Center for Jewish Studies.
His research focuses on medieval and modern Jewish thought, particularly the works of Maimonides, Hasdai Crescas, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Emmanuel Lévinas. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Jewish philosophy, bridging tradition and critical inquiry. His work seeks to integrate classical Jewish scholarship with contemporary philosophy, fostering dialogue across disciplines and between religious and secular perspectives.
Dialectics in Rabbinic Thought in Abraham Joshua Heschel
This paper offers a reading of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Torah Min HaShamayim BeAspaklaria Shel HaDorot as an expression of dialectics in rabbinic thought, whose logic and language can be meaningfully compared to certain Eastern philosophical paradigms. Heschel interprets rabbinic tradition not as a unified system, but as a dynamic tension between religious antitheses—mysticism and reason, transcendence and immanence, Halakhah and Aggadah—arguing that such tension is not a flaw, but the very source of vitality in Jewish thought. Drawing on phenomenology and shaped by Hasidic spirituality, Heschel develops a “deep theology” rooted in the lived experience of the sacred. The presentation explores rabbinic modes of legitimizing controversy as a way of accessing revelation, bringing this logic closer to the productive contradiction found in Eastern traditions. It aims to contribute to intercultural dialogue on non-Western models of theological reflection, where multiplicity and paradox are not obstacles, but authentic sources of truth.
©2025 by The XI International Conference of Eastern Philosophy at Unicamp
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