The Lonely Man of Faith

by Joseph B. Soloveitchik

There are two basic distinctions between dignity and cathartic redemptiveness: 1. Being redeemed is, unlike being dignified, an ontological awareness. It is not just an extraneous, accidental attribute—among other attributes—of being, but a definitive mode of being itself. A redeemed existence is intrinsically different from an unredeemed. Redemptiveness does not have to be acted out vis-á-vis the outside world.* Even a hermit, while not having the opportunity to manifest dignity, can live a redeemed life. Cathartic redemptiveness is experienced in the privacy of one’s in-depth personality, and it cuts below the relationship between the “I” and the “thou” (to use an existentialist term) and reaches into the very hidden strata of the isolated “I” who knows himself as a singular being. When objectified in personal and emotional categories, cathartic redemptiveness expresses itself in the feeling of axiological security. The individual intuits his existence as worthwhile, legitimate, and adequate, anchored in something stable and unchangeable.