Benjamin’s Marxism retained a Talmudic exegetical mode of thought

Evidence

What appealed to Benjamin about it was the exegetical skill needed to probe its levels of meaning. In a letter to Rychner written in 1931, well after Benjamin had become interested in Marxism, he could still comment, “I have never been able to do research and think in a way other than, if I may so put it, in a theological sense - namely, in accordance with the Talmudic teaching of the forty-nine levels of meaning in every passage in the Torah.” 135 As has often been noted, Benjamin’s examination of cultural phenomena resembled that of a biblical scholar probing a sacred text. In his hope of writing a book consisting solely of quotations, Benjamin expressed a quasi-religious desire to become the transparent mouthpiece of a higher reality. His theory of language was similarly rooted in the assumption of a central reality, which could be revealed, albeit incompletely, by the power of exegesis. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 599

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader question of Jewish-messianic strains in Western Marxism traced by thinkers like Gershom Scholem and later in Habermas’s work on Benjamin. — connects to: The Institute pushed Benjamin toward secularism rather than theology — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 602; Benjamin secularized Jewish messianism into his Marxist theory of revolutionary time — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 600; Marxism absorbed and incorporated preexisting national modes of thought rather than displacing them (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Marxism absorbed and incorporated preexisting national modes of thought rather than displacing them #expands (0.80)
• Benjamin read Kafka’s messianism as a theologico-political remnant #expands (0.75) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 756