Michael A. Meyer THE THOUGHT OF LEO BAECK: A RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY FOR A TIME OF ADVERSITY Aus dem groften "Ich bin der, der ist-du sollst!" erwiichst d Furchtlosigkeit. [From the great "I am the One Who shalt!" there arises the great fearlessness.]' -Leo Baeck, Dieses Volk More than forty years after his death at the age of eight the extraordinary character of the German Rabbi Le source of astonishment. Accounts of acquaintances an tray a man whose sense of obligation to others under circumstances repeatedly overrode concern for his own Leo Baeck was a theologian, whose major writings, a century old, continue to arouse interest both in Ger as indicated by the current appearance of a six-volum of his collected works.2 He was, as well, a communal in 1933, he presided over the Reichsvertretung der deu from 1939 the Reichsvereinigung derJuden in Deutschlan tive bodies of all GermanyJewry, whose difficult task it Jewish institutions and Jewish morale during the ye nation. Representing a middle position between Z Zionists, as well as between separatist Orthodox an Jews, he enjoyed an extraordinarily broad support in He was also a teacher, who continued to instruct students at the Hochschule (the Nazis lowered its status to that of Lehranstalt) fiur die W senschaft desJudentums, the Liberal Jewish seminary in Berlin, until a months before his deportation early in 1943. Five times arrested, Baeck displayed a dignity and fearlessness fore the Nazi authorities that utterly confuted the antisemitic stereotyp of the coweringJew. For a time he also maintained connections with German resistance movement. Well known is the thinly veiled anti-N prayer that he composed for reading in all German synagogues on Day of Atonement in 1935, which induced the Gestapo to confiscat and to arrest its author.3 Less familiar is the only recently publish "Word of Consolation" sent to Jewish communities a few weeks ear ModernJudaism 19 (1999): 107-117 ? 1999 by TheJohns Hopkins University Press