Jeremy Phillip Brown on Piety and Rebellion: Essays In
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Shaul Magid. Piety and Rebellion: Essays in Hasidism. Bloomington: Academic Studies Press, 2019. 580 pp. $34.00, paperback, ISBN 978-1-64469-115-1. Reviewed by Jeremy Phillip Brown Published on H-Judaic (December, 2019) Commissioned by Barbara Krawcowicz (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) The past few years have brought a series of sources range from the teachings of R. Israel ben retrospective anthologies collecting the work of Eliezer, the Baʿal Shem Tov, or Besht (as preserved Hasidism scholars. Shaul Magid’s Piety and Rebel‐ by his earliest disciples) to early Habad-Lubavitch lion: Essays in Hasidism appears alongside recent prayer commentary, from the narrative realms of collections by Ada Rapoport-Albert, Naftali Reb Naḥman of Bratslav’s stories to the sermons Loewenthal, and Arthur Green. It arrives in the and essays of twentieth-century Hasidic leaders same year as Magid’s The Bible, the Talmud, and wrestling with how to theologize the political real‐ the New Testament: Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik's Com‐ ities of Jewish life at the brink of destruction and mentary to the Gospels, on the heels of his 2014 the establishment of a Jewish state in the Middle book Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, East. It takes on both the classical sources of Ha‐ and the Construction of Modern Judaism, and sidism and less-studied material issuing from the ahead of his much-anticipated spiritual biography contemporary Haredi world (such as the writings of Jewish Defense League and Kach Party ideo‐ of R. Shalom Noah Barzofsky of Slonim and R. logue Meir Kahana. Instead of a programmatic Aaron “Arele” Roth of Shomer Emunim). anthology, the collection is an eclectic retrospec‐ The studies in Piety and Rebellion touch upon tive. It brings together previously published arti‐ themes as diverse as biblical hermeneutics, gen‐ cles in their original, unrevised form that have der, ritual, disability, pluralism, Jewish-Christian not been assimilated into Magid’s pathbreaking difference, law, the Holocaust, fundamentalism, monographs, as well as a few new pieces. Piety Americanism, et cetera. In other words, they re‐ and Rebellion is thus more a collection of “B- flect themes that have occupied Magid throughout Sides” benefiting experts in the feld of Jewish his career, especially in 2005’s Hasidism on the mysticism than a “Greatest Hits” representative of Margin (adapted from the author’s Brandeis PhD the full breadth of Magid’s contribution, which, to thesis), the aforementioned Hasidism Incarnate, be sure, extends beyond Beshtian Hasidism to em‐ and 2013’s theologically constructive American brace an expansive repertoire of Jewish thought, Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a Posteth‐ culture, and politics. Here, as elsewhere in the au‐ nic Society. The author not only interprets this thor’s large and daily-growing oeuvre, the collec‐ material with an extensive command of tradition‐ tion is full of penetrating insights into a wide se‐ al rabbinic sources, but brings to bear an inten‐ lection of traditional material. The primary sive expertise in Lurianic Kabbalah. Of course, H-Net Reviews Magid is not alone among scholars of Hasidism scholarship is, or should be, autobiographical” (p. who also work in Kabbalah studies. But one dis‐ xl). It is certainly daring to state that all scholar‐ tinguishing element of the essays contained in ship—in particular, scholarship on religion, and this volume, and of Magid’s work more generally, especially Judaism—should be autobiographical. is a willingness to engage in interpretive play at Indeed, the placement of a vita in lieu of a themat‐ the intersections where Kabbalah and Hasidism ic introduction makes the collection a highly per‐ converge. In addition to its eclectic quality, anoth‐ sonal affair. But it also provokes important ques‐ er feature that distinguishes Piety and Rebellion is tions for scholars of Jewish mysticism—some who the book’s bold autobiographical introduction. publicly espouse the theological promise of their Here, Magid recounts his own captivating jour‐ subject matter, others who maintain a cautious ney. It is the story of a restless intellectual, who, distance, and still others like Magid who position fashioning himself both an insider and an out‐ their lives both within and without. For one, it sider, has sustained his soul on everything from begs the question of the epistemological viability macrobiotics and LSD to the yeshivas of of collapsing a critical distance between the sub‐ Jerusalem, from the rabbinate to the Ivy League. ject and object of analysis, precisely when re‐ One of the riddles posed by Piety and Rebel‐ searching material that is inherently dogmatic lion is that it is organized according to two com‐ and acutely political. peting chronologies. On the one hand, the essays An additional avenue suggested by Magid for follow the chronology of their subject matter: they organizing these diverse studies is his claim that are divided into the categories of “Early Ha‐ they exhibit the “alterity” of Hasidism, rather sidism” and “Later Hasidism.” On the other hand, than its transcendental “essence.” “Unlike [Mar‐ the reader may take a cue from the book’s intro‐ tin] Buber,” he writes, “I am not looking for a ha‐ duction and read the essays as progressively ma‐ sidic essence. That was for a different time. In turing stations on author’s own intellectual itiner‐ these essays I am looking perhaps for an alterity ary. Or as the blurb by Pinchas Giller on the back that could open the texts to the world and shine of the book suggests: “This collection of essays light on the possible global implicactions [sic] at serves as the scholarly and intellectual diary of work in the recesses of a highly parochial tradi‐ the evolution of Shaul Magid, tempered in the tion” (pp. xli-xli). This is an intriguing possibility study of Kabbalah and Hasidism, now a scholarly that Magid evokes, albeit without connecting the and communal leader.” Yet one barrier to reading dots for his readers. What, concretely, are the the anthology for what it reveals about Magid’s global implications at work in the recesses of Ha‐ life path is that—short of a brief note acknowledg‐ sidism? Are these global implications data for the‐ ing the original publishers of these essays—the ology? For philosophy? For politics? Readers are volume does not date its contents, nor provide a left to intuit their own responses from between bibliography indicating where, when, and how the lines of the individual studies which follow. the essays first appeared. Also, if it is no longer possible to distill “a hasidic What are the organizing principles guiding essence,” what can still be said about the general this collection of essays? The author cites the vol‐ character of Hasidism without compromising its ume’s autobiographical premise as its unifying el‐ heterogeneity? ement: “[These essays] illustrate my struggle with Another question that helps to illustrate the ḥasidic texts, my closeness to them, and my dis‐ bifocal expertise that Magid brings to the table: tance from them. In retrospect perhaps they re‐ what do these essays teach us about the relation flect more about me than about them, but all of Hasidism to Kabbalah? This question remains 2 H-Net Reviews important as ever, especially at a time when the Ḥasidism deviates from classical theosophical academic study of Jewish mysticism, which has Kabbalah, which more strictly limits access to God long presumed the categorical cohesion of the two through the miẓvot” (p. 60n63). subfields, is recalibrating itself to the ideological These are indeed subtle attempts to relate the criticism of Boaz Huss. In the opening essay on doctrinal and social conceptions of Hasidism to biblical interpretation in the writings of the those of Kabbalah. What they suggest (beyond the Besht’s amanuensis, Jacob Joseph of Polnoye, sense that Magid is sometimes operating with a Magid develops Rachel Elior’s assertions about more robust sense of the general character of Ha‐ the innovations introduced to Jewish mysticism sidism than suggested by his avowal of alterity) is by Beshtian Hasidism, generally construed. After that the two felds are mutually imbedded to an urging readers to appreciate the sundry and mul‐ extent that is sometimes obfuscated by isolating tivalent character of the tradition, Magid writes: Hasidism as an analytical object. But beyond the “Ḥasidism is surely a link in the chain of the Jew‐ negotiation of phenomenologically, chronological‐ ish mystical tradition but one that in some ways ly, or sociologically isolated types (Kabbalah-no‐ undermines or revises the basic metaphysical mian-early-elitist vs. Hasidism-hypernomian-late- framework of previous Kabbalah” (p. 4). A few populist—a set of oppositions which are by no pages on, we read more about what is new in Ha‐ means absolute), scholarly constructions of differ‐ sidism: the “new way of Hasidism, … though ence may also be conditioned by, for example, the pietistic in nature, departed significantly from the enthusiastic perpetuation of Kabbalah qua Kab‐ ascetic pietism of the past and offered its readers balah on the part of major Hasidim (e.g., in the a way of serving God joyously” (p. 10). And a few Ḥabad and Zhidachov-Komarno dynasties), as pages still further, Magid affirms: “The conven‐ well as the dissociation of others therefrom. tional model until Hasidism was one of pious as‐ Needless to say, I fnd Magid’s treatment of ceticism and the division of society between elites the Kabbalah-Hasidism relationship most com‐ and the masses. Hasidism suggests (at least in the pelling when his analysis does not hinge on typo‐ Besht’s portrayal imagined by his early disciples) logical disparity, but rather highlights categorical a non- or even anti-ascetic pietism and supports a intersections. The second essay, on zaddikism, more integrative relationship between the elite does this effectively.