"Sociality with the Absolute..." and a bit about "self-deconstruction"

A wonderful formulation of Levinas', using some formulations he finds in the 12th century philosopher/mystic Judah or Yehuda Halevi (יהודה הלוי). Namely, that the relationship with the order of god is conceived in "social" terms like "association" and "proximity", though not in such a way that this connotes a deficiency in proper philosophical knowledge about this order:

It is, in fact, my opinion that the relation to God called faith does not primordially mean adhesion to certain statements that constitute a knowledge for which there is no demonstration--a knowledge that would from time to time be troubled by the anxiety of a certainty lacking proof. To me, religion means transcendence, which, as proximity of the absolutely other (i.e., of the one of its kind), is not a failed coinciding and would not have ended in some sublime projected goal, nor in the incomprehension of what should have been grasped and understood as an object, as "my thing." Religion is the excellence proper to sociality with the Absolute, or, if you will, in the positive sense of the expression, Peace with the other.
-"On Jewish Philosophy" (interview with Françoise Armengaud) in In the Time of the Nations, 170.

Frankly, I find this much more useful and interesting as a meditation on how to approach the relation to God than the rather old-fashioned reflections of Jean-Luc Nancy in his recent Dis-enclosure: The Deconstruction of Christianity: that is, one should be able to characterize this relation differently, using people like Yehuda Halevi, rather than take this relation itself as the object--which means taking it somewhat for granted--and looking at that. In other words, to me, Nancy gets tangled up in what I think are these Levinasian problems, but poses them as if they were Derridian in nature: namely, as problems dealing with the dis-enclosure (déclosion) of a field in which the self-deconstruction of the Christian relation to God can change its orientation. This seems misguided, because for Derrida it was not the relation that was the issue but the conception of God himself (which produced the relation). Regardless, the whole notion of Christianity as "self-deconstructing," which Derrida I think warned Nancy too much about, and which Nancy is too obsessed with in turn, is just odd to me. For what is not self-deconstructing? The phrase seems like an oxymoron intended to try and get Nancy to reflect on his rather philosophically-oriented notion of deconstruction--one which Derrida I think rightly opposed, perhaps most in his amazing, late work on his friendship with Nancy, On Touching. But Nancy seems not to take it seriously--or too seriously.
This makes him end up spinning all sorts of tales about a relation to the absolute being self-deconstructing, when what he might just be saying is what Levinas is saying here: that the relationship to God is going to be social, or whatever, in some way. Somehow Levinas can say more directly what Nancy just can't--that's all I'm getting at--when they are actually talking about something similar, in the end. For both, in turn, can be deconstructed by Derrida--that is my point. But one has a healthier way of formulating the problems involved than the other. And I don't like to think that this has something to do with the essential nature of Judaism versus Christianity: this is what I think Nancy would like us to think, but I don't buy it. I do think there are essential differences: I just don't buy that Christianity is different because it poses the same problems that Levinas brings up here (and this is what I'm saying happens in Nancy) just in a more complex fashion.
I know this is all a bit confusing--I apologize, it's confusing for me now, too--but maybe after more reading of Nancy I can more perspicuously articulate my reservations. For now, I'll just remain vague and schematic.
Regardless, I just wanted to draw attention to wonderful quote that set these things going in my mind--one that occurs in a bit of a different language than usual for Levinas (care of Halevi, and it is this willingness to assimilate that I'm really saying Nancy lacks), though with the ever-present talent of his for rich condensation and brilliant clarity: "Religion is the excellence proper to sociality with the Absolute..." Amazing!