Answer

Beyond Kant, I don’t think there was anyone I can say really influenced me. Of course reading various writings had an effect, but usually not the content and ideas; rather the method, the atmosphere, and the way of thinking. You could say they all inspired me, but I don’t think there was influence from any particular person. Maybe Leibowitz influenced me, though I disagree with him on most of what he says. A lot of the time he’s right, and then he takes one step too far. In those cases, I take the first step.
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Questioner:
Maimonides and the Nazir too, no?
By the way, do you think the Critique of Pure Reason is the greatest and deepest philosophical work ever written?
Levinas?
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Rabbi:
Maimonides and the Nazir too (although he’s annoying and repeats himself a lot. It seems to me he has only one truly substantive innovation, but it’s very important: auditory logic as opposed to visual logic). But among the philosophers—I think only Kant.
The Critique is at least an excellent candidate for that title. It’s hard for me to judge all of history with a wave of the keyboard (and I’m also far from knowing all of it).
Levinas—definitely not. In my view it’s empty chatter (though I’ve barely read him because of that impression). And in general, French philosophers tend toward irritating verbosity and undefined wordplay. I prefer the Anglo-American philosophers, who are more analytic. Analyticity as a method is excellent, because it is careful to define concepts and to rely on sharp and clear arguments, although when it slides into a worldview (what I called analyticity versus syntheticity) it misses the truth. I devoted my quartet to that.