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Hasidic Echoes in the Labor Movement

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Hasidic Echoes in the Labor Movement LIOR LIBMAN Hasidic Echoes in n a 1964 memoirist text, the novelist Yehuda the Labor Ya’ari (1900–1982), who was among the young people who immigrated to Palestine in the early 20th century inspired by the ideas of Movement IZionism and Socialism—later known as ‘Labor Movement pioneers’— describes how the communal group he was part of decided on its name: During the conversation one of the members… told that when he was in Jerusalem, he encoun- tered Bratslav Hasidim, and his meeting with these Hasidim was a very deep experience for him. He spoke enthusiastically…of simple honest men who make a meager living from their own manual labor, told of their talks and their tales, and finally said…” Bratslav Hasidim used to gather every year at Rosh Hashanah to pray and study the books of their Rebbe, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav….This gathering…Hasidim would call “Ha-kibbutz” [lit., the gathering]. Well, why won’t we also use this term to call our camp in the name ‘kibbutz?’” Our people heard the words of the member…and agreed to call our camp this name from now on.… And lo and behold: a few days did not pass until all of the groups…changed their names and called themselves ‘kibbutz’. Sources vary about the origin of the name kibbutz— perhaps the most distinct social form created by the Labor Movement. But whether Ya’ari’s story is historically accurate or not, the very association he makes between the pioneers and Hasidism is 35 Frankel Institue Annual 2017 Dancing “Horah”, kibbutz Ein-Harod, 1930s intriguing. According to Ya’ari, the identification Hasidic movement on them, particularly by its with Hasidism is based on Hasidism’s self-sufficient, devotion to a higher cause, and its enthusiastic simple, and modest life, and on the spiritual element singing and ecstatic dancing. This affinity can be which is present and realized in the life of the Hasidim traced also in the unconscious channels in which and connects them together, as the essence of the Hasidism shaped the pioneers’ self-understanding assembling ‘kibbutz’. Ya’ari adds: “Hasidism was and experience of the material world. the spring from which we drew our spirit-of-poetry The Labor Movement pioneers’ identity was and the food for our soul in these early days….And based upon the notion of ‘fulfillment’ Hagshama( ): without this spirit-of-poetry that encompassed us they saw their historical actions in a meta-historical in these days we could not have existed.” Ya’ari’s light and thought of them in terms of the actualizing late text complements contemporary references of of a vision. This self-understanding emanated, Labor Movement pioneers about the influence of the 36 Frankel Institue Annual 2017 service). Like avodah be-gashmiyut, hagshama invested spiritual meaning in the profane: worldly action expressed faith and was directed towards tikkun (repair), bringing the redemption of both the individual and the world. The idea oftikkun enabled the synchronous understanding of Zionism and Socialism: the perception of the revival of the nation and the renovation of society as being the same thing. That may seem surprising: after all, Socialist-Zionist pioneers, who derived considerably from Hasidic Pioneers working the land, kibbutz, Dafna, 1939 backgrounds, renounced the old framework of Jewish life, including the Jewish religion, and I propose, from a Hasidic theological model of aspired to create a whole new Jewish and human thought. The pioneers re-contextualized—secular- existence with their immigration. For this, they ized and nationalized—the Hasidic narrative about are commonly perceived as secular and even the relationship between the physical and the anti-religious. Indeed, the prevailing historiography metaphysical, and the human’s place in the world, sees the Labor Movement as secular, replacing retelling it in Socialist-Zionist terms, viewing Jewish religion with a Socialist-Zionist ‘religion of themselves as engaging, within their daily life, their labor’ in which the function of providing a guiding creed. “Our vision of equality and communality as creed is saved for secular substances. life principles…in the process of the formation of the Working Hebrew People in the Land of Israel...is laid However, going beyond the metaphorical at the foundation of all our deeds every day,” wrote comprehension of religion in ‘religion of labor’, Menah.em Dorman (1909–1994), member of Kibbutz and critically reading key images, notions, and Givat Brenner and a prominent Labor Movement structures of argumentation as they appear in the intellectual, in 1950. The concept ofhagshama Labor Movement’s pioneer literature uncovers a locates metaphysical notions in the physical world; more complicated interplay between religion and it locates redemption in history. It resonates with secularization, which unsettles the perception of the Hasidic ideal of avodah be-gashmiyut (worship secularization as a linear and complete process. by means of materiality and corporeality, the term Such a reading reveals that, influenced by neo- avodah meaning both physical labor and divine Hasidic ideas that were present in Hebrew Revival 37 Frankel Institue Annual 2017 thought and literature, pioneers found in Hasidism on the land, opens here in front of him….Zionism a language that connected them to their Jewish past is a great ideal and is included in the messianic and tradition in their post-religious condition, idea…and here this ideal is realized.... rescuing and reviving its vitality; Hasidism provided The connections of the pioneers to Hasidism, and the imagery of deep emotional, personal involvement, the place of Jewish religious concepts retained in the enthusiasm, commitment, and devotion to repair, Socialist-Zionist vocabulary and political imagination, and of a social form that is organically tied together challenge established narratives of break and by clinging to its ideals. Moreover, the Hasidic ideal continuity in Zionist history. Deepening and of direct attachment to the spiritual bestowed reframing exploration into the cultural foundations redemptive existential meaning upon the deed-on- of one of the most vital forces in modern Jewish earth, and upon the ‘secular’ values of the movement, history, the examination of these affinities sheds such as the connection to nature, agricultural labor, new light on questions of the Labor Movement’s and an ancient, primal existence specifically in the achievements and rise as well as limitations and Land of Israel, the Holy Land. These characteristics decline. Considering the Socialist-Zionist Labor of pioneer thought are epitomized in the words of Movement’s political and cultural hegemony during Nah.um Benari (1893–1963) of Kibbutz Ein Harod the pre-State Yishuv and in Israel’s formative a central Labor Movement cultural leader, written decades, it also provides new perspectives with in 1948: which to approach Israel’s intellectual, cultural, Jews in harness—I heard this expression from and political history. ● Hasidim and they meant by it to distinguish themselves from Jews who dismantled the burden [of commandments]...nowadays and here in the land [of Israel]…our rural village people are ‘Jews in harness’. They made a covenant with the ground and committed themselves to a burden of commandments…. Zionism does not end with ‘aliyah....On the contrary, with the first steps on the soil of the land the newcomer will feel that a new book of commandments, commandments that depend .
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