Session 4

Scholem as historian of Jewish mysticism: a seeker of historical and transcendent truth? Brief discussion of end reading assignment. Conclusions.

 List of major books: 

Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, third ed., 1961

Jewish Mysticism in the Middle Ages, 1964

On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, 1965

Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition, 1965

The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality, 1971

Kabbalah, 1974

On the Mystical Idea of the Godhead, 1976

On Jews and Judaism in Crisis, 1976.

   *      *      *

 Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Based on lectures given at the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York for the year of 1938; subsequently augmented to make 9 lectures.) I have the 1946 Schocken Books edition. Throne-mysticism, the earliest form. Hekhalot, palaces. The Merkhabah, or chariot (of God). Hasidim (both medieval and modern), Lurianism, Sabbateanism. After the expulsion from Spain (1492), mystics move from Gerona (in Catalonia) to Safed, in Galilee. The theme of exile.

Origins of the Kabbalah (JPS,  Princeton University, 1987) Original publication, Ursprung und Anfänge der Kabbala Copyright 1962.

Scholem describes  three periods in the history of the Science of Judaism. During the emancipation period, the Wissenschaft scholars shared a general longing to rid themselves of the particularities standing in the way of assimilation. Conservative and destructive elements in contradiction. Leopold Zunz. Steinschneider: “a decent burial.” Second period, awaiting “the messiah of liberalism.” A mixture of sentimentality and apologetics. Third period: The renascence of the nationalist movement. He revised his position, particularly his view of the last period, in a lecture delivered in London in 1959 entitled “The Science of Judaism, Then and Now.”

Excerpts from Gershom Scholem’s “Reflections on the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time,” (1963) in On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in Our Time & Other Essays, ed. Avraham Shapira (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1997), pp. 6-19). Scholem first posits the sine qua non of Jewish mysticism in the past: the belief in the Torah from Heaven. This becomes apparent for example in the piece some of you may have read, “On the Name of God.” Scholem now speaks of “religious anarchy,” and goes on to say: “It is not surprising that, within this path to anarchy—a way that is no way, yet one nevertheless walked by thousands and tens of thousands of people, every day, every hour—we have no clear knowledge as to whether mystical experience can in our generation assume a crystallized form obligating any sort of community. In my opinion, for the present we need to leave this question unresolved.” (This is followed by reflections on secularization. “Who knows where the boundaries of holiness lie?” he asks, and then “We find it difficult today to judge the possibility of secularization as a camouflage for holiness that has not yet been recognized as such. This is our secular reality here in Eretz Yisra’el…” Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass.

Scholem the bibliophile: Arrived in Palestine in 1923 with 2,000 books, 600 of which were on the Kabbalah. He left a magnificent library of more than 20,000 books to the Jewish National and University Library. Most of them he purchased in Jerusalem in the Old City’s Jewish quarter.

            The Jews were known in ancient times as “the people of the Book.” The book being the book of books, the Bible. In the context of Scholem’s bibliophilic life and work, let me share with you what I remember of a conversation with a former teacher of mine, the poet Ted Weiss. I had been reading the Odyssey, and was up to Odysseus’s visit to the Underworld to find out what he needed to do. He had to offer the shades blood to drink so they could speak to him. I thought this an odd rite, and asked Ted what it meant. He said, it means that you should go to the library, so that the close-mouthed books may speak through your sacrifice.

            Apropos of books, let me conclude with a sentence from a philosopher who has been an important mentor for me: Emmanuel Levinas. I will read the relevant sentence first in its original French, then in English. « Les grands livres du judaïsme nous apportent enfin les décors, disparus depuis que tout se reduisait à une incomprehensible liturgie. Ils restituent l’équivalent des perspectives et des dimensions que les bâtisseurs de cathédrales avaient ouvertes dans l’espace chrétien. Les bâtisseurs du judaïsme ont ciselé dans les livres une minutieuse et précise architecture. Il est temps, en effet, de faire remonter à la clarté de l’intelligence moderne les cathédrales englouties dans les textes» (Difficile liberté, 348). “Judaism’s great books carry with them the decor that disappeared ever since all was reduced to an incomprehensible liturgy. They restore the equivalent of the perspectives and dimensions that the cathedral builders had opened up within the Christian space. The builders of Judaism had chiseled out in their books a minute and precise architecture. It is time to bring up into the clarity of modern intelligence the cathedrals submerged in the texts” (Difficult Freedom, trans. Seán Hand, modified, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990).