 This conception of a Jewish “anthropology” corresponds not to particular Jews, but to our human condition when we understand it as a condition largely received, passively and without our explicit choice. As Hammerschlag and Fagenblat have urged, this human pathos, consistent with a pluralistic ontology, might well be approached as an existential category (Hammerschlag 2012:  389–419).[45]  This too is why Levinas characterized Judaism as “an understanding of being”, rather than as a religion. Yet this category may surprise us if we overlook the fact that a definitive part of our existence does comes from without, i.e., through the internalization of the life of our community, its founding texts, but also through social and political characterizations of us (antisemitism, racism, sexism).