When tradition ends – Zur Figur des Traditionsbruchs

An international workshop at the The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, organized by Birgit Erdle (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Daniel Weidner.

The formula ›breaking with tradition‹ does not only imply the idea of an ›end‹, a ›death‹, or a ›petrification‹ of tradition, which in itself is highly metaphorical. It usually also refers to an idea of tradition that is not made explicit – and it does so very consistently, if we assume that we cannot fully understand what tradition once meant based on our modern assumptions. Thus, one of the reasons why the idea of a ›crisis of tradition‹ is complex is the entanglement of modernity and tradition as two polar and opposing categories, which makes the idea fundamentally paradoxical: Tradition usually connotes continuity, which might imply change and innovation but always assumes a relation between the old and the new, a continuity which is expressed by the ›chain‹ or the ›stream‹ of tradition, the two basic metaphors with which tradition is conventionally described. However, what happens if this chain is broken or the stream dries out, becomes invisible, or ceases to be ›fruitful‹?