SOURCE: "The Idea of the Holy (Rudolf Otto)," in The Jew: Essays From Martin Buber's Journal, Der Jude, 1916-1928, edited by Arthur A. Cohen, The University of Alabama Press, 1980, pp. 232-6.

In the following essay originally published in 1922 in the Martin Buber journal Der Jude, Strauss relates Otto's The Idea of the Holy to European Judaism.

It often happens in the Zionist youth movement that our young students take philosophical, sociological, and historical theories they have learned at university and apply them, in our periodicals, to our own problems, often without heeding the dubious aspects of such an application. This phenomenon, initially comical, springing as it does from a touching lack of reflection, has a serious background. Ultimately, it mirrors the overall spiritual situation of German Jews. Isn't that what all theologians of German Judaism have done? Haven't they all projected the German milieu, its predominant values and...