I'm not sure what the moral of this nal bricks from which Ferry is extrapo- In this learned and valuable book, is. I do know that, hke Peter Levi, I lating his straw. The well-meshed words Nadler seeks to deepen our picture of have enjoyed Horace's Odes since ado- seduce. They and their syncopated, un- that spiritual landscape by recapturing lescence, for their wry wisdom, their familiar rhythms are incantatory. I sus- the vivid religiosity of Hasidism's prin- exquisite sense of impermanence, their pect that a surprising number of people, cipled opponents, who themselves cast cynicism, stoicism, and epicureanism after tempting exposure of this sort, will a long shadow to the present. Amid (Horace was a philosophical magpie), quietly go away and start learning Latin; today's popular and academic concern their quiet courage in dangerous times, and if enough of them do that, we won't with "spirituality"—reflecting a disen- above all for the scintillating and unique need translations anymore, except to let chantment with intellect and structure, skill with words that stamps them all the litterateurs show off, which is anyway and a near-obsession with personal ful- into one's memory. I have seen many their most popular current use. Master fillment—a second look at the Mith- worse translations than David Ferry's, the original languages, and you can then nagdim and the spiritual ideals that they and occasionally he scores, as with the enjoy true yariation-spinners such as developed is particularly welcome. beginning of 4.1. ("Venus, it seems that Christopher Logue, or, for Horace, Don- The extraordinary philological and now/Your wars are starting again./ ald Hall with his delightfully apt Horse- historical researches of Gershom Scho- Spare me, spare me, I pray. / I am not collar Odes (Carne-Ross misses these, lem and his successors laid to rest what I was / When tender Cynara ruled too), however whimsically they may stray the rationalistic depiction of Judaism me.") Too often, though, he is prolix, from their theme. Until then, most read- offered by the Wissenschafi des Judentums chatty, and cute. ers will have to rely, like Ptolemaic of the nineteenth century, by demon- The best thing by far about Ferry's administrators in Egypt, on interpreters; strating the continuity and the vigor of The Odes of Horace is that it is bilingual. and what that means, alas, a perusal of mysticism throughout Jewish history. Again and again the eye is drawn to the Horace in English will tell them with quite So good a job did Scholem do that lef^t-hand page to see the exquisite origi- uncommon clarity. • the mystical tradition, and Hasidism in particular, have crowded out other streams of Jewish spirituality, and cer- tainly its anti-Hasidic currents. Indeed, one of the last popular cliches of Jew- ish history is the depiction of Hasid- A Severe Ecstasy ism's opponents as arid legalists, and even proto-Enlightenment rationalists; yet it too must now be put aside for a BY YEHUDAH MIRSKY fuller appreciation of the variety of Jew- ish spiritual life. The Faith of the Mithnagdim: hroughout Jewish history, mystical activity fiourished Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rapture alongside the study of Tal- by Allan Nadler mud, midrash, and other formsT • of exegesis, and philosophical (Johns Hopkins University Press, 254 pp., $351 speculation, with varying emphasis and hen I was growing up tradition, which Allan Nadler makes intensity over time and place. All these in New York, my family accessible in his important book, help- forms of creativity could regularly be would sometimes pray fully complicates our understanding, found within the same rabbis. Hasidism at a local shtiebel, Yiddish not only of Judaism, but of the vari- and Mithnagdism emerged out of this for "littlWe room," the designation for eties of religious meaning. Mithnagdism fertile terrain. Where Hasidism differed smallish, usually ramshackle, Hasidic broaches the difficult question of the was in its commitment to the popular- synagogues. Late in the day on Saturday, relationship of the spiritual and the ization and the internalization of mysti- the rabbi and his congregants would intellectual. cal ideas, which in turn changed the gather around a table for the third Mithnagdism, or Hitnagdut, crystal- shape and meaning of those ideas Sabbath meal, which, in the" Kabbalistic lized in the late eighteenth and early themselves. Thus Hasidism depicted the tradition, marks the passing of the day, nineteenth century in opposition to dynamic interaction of divine energies and of the union of higher and lower the spread of Hasidism. Then as now, explored by the Kabbalists as being worlds brought about by the Sabbath. Hasidism captured many imaginations played out in the inner lives of individu- The men would sing the hymns written with its mix of the exalted and the als, whose own rises and falls mirrored by the great sixteenth-century divine mundane, its popular dissemination of the travails of the supernal worlds; and Isaac Luria, evoking the spiritual twi- hitherto esoteric Kabbalistic doctrines, the Kabbalah's appreciation of divine light. My father, himself a rabbi, did not and its projection of exquisite meta- immanence, which simultaneously re- join in the singing. He would remain physical motions onto the inner lives of inforced the significance of the ter- in the sanctuary with a volume of Tal- individuals. Its broad appeal, down to restrial concerns of halakha, Talmudic mud, and mark the Sabbath dusk by the present day, is not at all surprising. law, and offered a counterpoint to the laboring through the intricacies of the It is picturesque and soulful. Its mystic fixities of that same law, was taken to text. My father was a mithnaged: literally, enthusiasm, and its storytelling and far-reaching conclusions, with a near- "an opponent," that is, an opponent of song, present a perfect spiritual alterna- sanctification of bodily function and Hasidism. Or one who preferred study tive to the intellectually demanding and communal life. to rapture. legally oriented discipline of classical The well-known opposition to Hasid- The Mithnagdim represent a Jewish rabbinic Judaism. ism by many leading rabbis of the day spirituality in which study figures as Hasidism's appeal is so great that it has long been seen as variously arising the supreme religious act. Little-known has become virtually synonymous with from a rejection of Kabbalistic doctrine, today outside of Orthodox circles, this the Jewish religion of Eastern Europe. differing understandings of divine im-

38 THE NEW REPUBLIC APRIL27, 1998 manence, or class bias. Nadler joins a the early Hasidim were not, as com- as part of a broader effervescence of growing body of opinion arguing in- monly supposed, of the common folk, new rituals; and this resulted, in large stead that the opposition to Hasidism but members themselves of the rabbinic part, from the spread of Kabbalistic was based not on the rejection of mys- fraternity. Some, such as Shneur Zal- ideas among broader sectors of Jewish ticism, btit on the rejection of its pop- man of Liady (1745-1812), the founder society, and with it a more pervasive ularization. And this, as Nadler shows of today's Lubavitch movement, were awareness of the metaphysical reach of in his most innovative chapters, was acknowledged masters of the law. The human action beyond this corporeal rooted in a deeply pessimistic view of appellation Ba'al Shem Tov, or Master of life. the possibilities of widespread human the Good Name, given the founder of Not for the Mithnagdim. For them, in perfection. Hasidism, Israel ben Eliezer of Medzhi- Nadler's telling, real death was the only bozh, was a common designation for release from this world's relentless ny examination of Hilnag- the seers and the shamans who served imperfection. "For most of the classical dut must begin with the as community functionaries—along- Hasidic thinkers," he writes, death was career and ideas of Hasid- side rabbis, scribes, butchers, and oth- "an ascent, most often the final eleva- ism's first and most influ- ers—in the communities of Eastern tion, of the human soul ... the culmina- ential Acritic, Elijah ben Solomon of Europe; and he himself was well-inte- tion of the religious works already Vilna (or Vilnius), known as the Gaon, grated into the structure of his commu- partially attained in this world, and ... or Great One, of Vilna. He was the tow- nity. Nor are the roots of Mithnagdic life's final, crowning spiritual achieve- ering rabbinic figure of the eighteenth opposition to Hasidism entirely to be ment." For the Hasidim, the erasure of century, and one of the greatest masters found, as some have thought, in dif- the self in death climaxed the biltul of rabbinical learning in any century. fering understandings of the notion ha'yesh, the dissolution of the self and The Gaon, who held no official position of divine immanence in the material the material world through meditative and confined his teaching to a small world. Early Hasidic and Mithnagdic practices. But the Gaon of Vilna, Nadler group of disciples, attained magisterial thinkers alike believed that ultimately says, "assumed a diametrically opposed atithority by his staggering erudition, his the divine presence permeates both the position ... namely, that the descent of intellectual acuity and originality, and seen and the unseen worlds. Yet the the soul into the body is its worst tor- his ascetic piety. His Talmudic method Mithnagdim, as Nadler observes, "were ment and that, far from allowing for eschewed the labyrinthine dialectics intent on preserving the distinction even greater perception of the godly popular in many circles and emphasized between the human and divine perspec- realms, corporeal existence hopelessly instead the plain meaning of the text, obscures the divine domain from the tives on the nature of the cosmos, in human senses." and a broad knowledge of the entirety sharp contrast to their Hasidic contem- of rabbinic literature. His painstaking poraries, whose goal was the oblitera- In an astounding exegesis of Adam's efforts to establish accurate versions of tion of that distinction." sin, the Gaon wrote that the introduc- texts made him a forerunner of modern tion of death into human experience critical scholarship; and more impor- hat the Mithnagdim was actually a blessing in disguise, "for tantly, he taught by example that textual there is nothing better for man than study could be an act of supreme reli- feared above all was the antinomian potential the decomposition of his physical mat- gious devotion. Talmud Torah, or the ter." And his disciples furthered this ideal of study as itself a high form of of mystical enthusiasm— the effacinWg of boundaries, metaphysical view, with statements such as Eliezer worship, had been a major theme of rab- and mundane, in the popular embrace Segal of Pinsk's admonition that death binic culture since antiquity, but in the "is an act of compassion and mercy. For Gaon's example that ideal took on an of an immanent divinity, unmoored in the rigors of study and obedience to the now that Adam has eaten of the tree, intensity that burned itself into the man must die in order to attain his minds of his followers. law. This, Nadler maintains, derived in turn from a deep pessimism about the true purpose. Thus did God explain to The Gaon was no stranger to the human condition and the attainment of Moses that 'no man can behold Me and Kabbalah. He composed commentaries spiritual perfection in the prisonhouse live.'" In 1825, Zevi Hirsch Katzenellen- on the Zohar (the central text of the of this world. Nadler's greatest contribu- bogen, a later disciple, went so far as to Kabbalah, composed in the thirteenth tion is the light that he casts on Mith- say that an early death is to be wel- century but traditionally ascribed to nagdic pessimism. He demonstrates at comed: "Why bother with a needless rabbis of the early Talmudic period) length that they held very little hope for delay here? Its only result will be the and other mystical texts, and a number this life, and so they refused to accept deviation frorn the right path and de- of his closest disciples were accom- Hasidic claims as to the possibility of scent into the ways of sin." For Mith- plished students of mysticism. But they spiritual transformation. nagdic thinkers, the soul's habitation in the body was a torment, an ordeal regarded that study as appropriate only Gonsider their attitude toward death. to those who had first steeped them- to be met and mastered, and not an A rich tradition of Kabbalistic thought opportunity, as the Hasidim taught, for selves in the vast literature of the saw the transfiguration of death, and Halakha, the extensive body of Jewish the redemption of the material world. the enactment of mystical death, as an The human body was a jail, not a vessel law, and conducted themselves with avenue of profound spiritual experi- unimpeachable piety. It is worth noting of transcendent experience or an arena ence. Through deep meditations, ritual for spiritual perfection. that the Gaon's disciples referred to simulations of death, and the charac- him, without irony, as "the Hasid." The terization of martyrdom as the ulti- term itself, which originates in the mate devotion, generations of mystics ne element of Hasidic re- Bible, has a long history, connoting (as Michael Fishbane has written) "culti- ligion that Nadler treats deep benevolence and transformative vated dimensions of death for the sake only briefiy, though it piety. The Mithnagdic quarrel was not of higher levels of spiritual awareness." stimulated much Mith- with that ideal as such, but with These practices took a more popular O nagdic ire, was the veneration of the Hasidism's contention that it could be turn in the seventeenth century, which realized by the masses. Tzaddik, literally the "righteous man." saw a proliferation of funerary rituals Like "Hasid," the term "Tzaddik" has Recent scholarship has shown that and meditative tracts centering on death a long and venerable history. In their

APRIL 27,1998 THE NEW REPUBLIC 39 reinterpretation of Kabbalistic doc- and loose with the legally mandated pression in a treatise called Nefesh Ha' trines, Hasidim came to regard the forms of its expression, with the sanc- Hayyim, or The Soul of Life, the master- Tzaddik, or the Rebbe, not only as the tion of the Rebbe. Goming not long piece of Hayyim of Volozhin, the Gaon's leader of the flock and the steward after the mystical antinomianism set preeminent disciple and the founder, in of its material needs, but also as the loose by the Sabbatian movement of the 1803, of the Volozhin yeshiva, the largest mediating vessel of transcendence. But late seventeenth century, this was seen and most infiuential of modern rabbinic this charismatic authority was seen by by the Mithnagdim as a reckless attack academies. Hayyim of Volozhin enjoyed the Mithnagdim as a dangerous alter- on the very foundations of traditional cordial relations with his Hasidic native to the authority of the law. (A Jewish practice. contemporaries, and the anti-Hasidic contemporary illustration of the perils polemics in his book are contained in an of the Tzaddik idea may be seen in vigorous response was appendix of uncertain provenance. His the extreme veneration of the recendy not long in coming. educational program was aimed less at deceased Lubavitcher Rebbe as the Nadler directs particular combatting Hasidism as such than at Messiah by a significant number of his attention to the works embodying the ideal of Torah study in followers. Nadler discussed this phe- of PhinehaAs ben Judah of Polotsk, a dis- an institution, the first of its kind, that nomenon in his influential essay "Last ciple of the Gaon of Vilna and one of would train, in a university-type setting, Exit to Brooklyn," in TNR, May 4, the best-known Mithnagdic preachers an elite corps of Talmudists drawn from 1992.) of his day. Phinehas was not a major a broad geographic area and taught by thinker, but he is a useful representative rabbis unencumbered by communal hese theological argu- of the Mithnagdic temper. In book responsibilities. ments had practical ef- after book over several decades, Phine- fects. The maintenance of has reminded the masses of their re- ayyim of Volozhin's halakhically fixed times for sponsibilities and urged them to direct achievement was to en- prayerT was an early and telling bone of their religious energies through the dow Torah study with fan- contention. Jewish law channels the study of Torah and faithful adherence tastic metaphysical prop- obligation to pray through a series of to the Halakha. His Kether Torah, or The erties.H In his hands, study became the prescriptions of place, manner, and Crown of Torah, first published in 1788, only true form of transcendence avail- time—morning prayers to be done by offered a scathing criticism of conven- able in this corrupt and fallen world. mid-morning, afternoon prayers be- tional understandings of spirituality Drawing on passages in the Zohar, fore sunset, evening prayers thereafter, and, in keeping with the Mithnagdic which attribute to the Torah a pre-exis- all according to detailed specifications. understanding of death, provided har- tence to the creation of the universe, Over the centuries, modes of contem- rowing meditations on the inevitable and characterize it as the blueprint of plative prayer, first suggested in the putrefaction of a life unmastered by all of creation (in an intriguing echo Talmud, were developed by the Kabbal- Torah. In the book's early chapters, of Islamic discussions of the uncreated- ists into elaborate practices aimed not he systematically surveys the seemingly ness of the Qu'ran), Hayyim of Volozhin only at the spiritual elevation of the pious and high-minded forms of reli- argued that Torah study offers the sole individual beyond the mundane but, gious life—introspection, the desire for avenue of escape from the metaphysical more dramatically, at the healing of union with God, kabbalistic exercises, and earthly complexities of the world, God. Drawing on the metaphysical pow- solitary study and devotion, self-abne- and the possibility of communion with ers of the Hebrew language, Kabbalistic gation before the unlettered—and dis- God: prayer sought nothing less than the misses them all as not only solipsistic, but, more interestingly, as seductive repair of the Name of God, which had And the reason for this is that the hid- been shattered, according to the Luri- ploys by Satan to lure the unwary from den supernal source of the holy Torah is anic cosmogony, in the creation of the the true locus of divine service, namely high above all the universes ... all of world. the house of study. Thus Phinehas whose existences are entirely dependent warns that "Satan will whisper to the on our preoccupation and study of her ... Hasidic prayer took even this radical unsuspecting scholar, 'It would be good unlike all the other commandments, understanding of prayer a step further for you to cut back on study and pursue including prayer, which, if God forbid we and, in keeping with its focus on the mitzvot [good deeds]....' Yet his entire fail to perform, the universe would not inner life, sought the dissolution of the aim is to lead you from the house of revert to the chaos of creation ... while self into God in prayer, by means study, which is the altar on which engagement with the holy Torah touches of deep meditation on the sounds and [Satan] is slaughtered." tipon the very life and sustenance of the the words of the liturgy. Thus, Nad- universes ... ler writes, "in Hasidism, contemplative, Like his master the Gaon of Vilna, mystical prayer became man's most Phinehas regards the study of Kabba- In Hayyim of Volozhin's view, study important personal religious obligation, lah as the pinnacle of scholarly and can break the stranglehold of temporal- upon which no limitations, temporal religious attainment—but a pinnacle ity and create an entrepot for eternity or literal, might reasonably be set." attained only after long and arduous into this world. The prosaic character of Taken with Hasidism's commitment to study of the Talmudic corpus (which much of the Talmudic legal corpus itself the popular dissemination of these study, in fellowship with other students makes this transfiguration readily avail- ideas, in part so as to afford a stirring of Torah, is the supreme act of religious able to one and all. Any Jew who applies religious vehicle to the masses who were devotion). Here we begin to see the himself to the study of' the law can sus- not themselves Talmudic masters, pray- Mithnagdim's deepest contribution to tain all the seen and unseen worlds and er became a flash-point for confronta- the religious life of^ humanity, the ideal find redemption as his eyes meet the tion over the nature and the structure of Torah Li'Shma, "Torah for its own page. of religious experience, the reach of sake," of ceaseless study as the truest Nadler's book ends in the early nine- legal obligation, and the nature of rab- union of divine immanence and tran- teenth century. As the decades wore binic authority. Prayer's displacement scendence in the life of the individual on, the Hasidim and the Mithnagdim of Torah study as the supreme religious and the community. buried many of their differences to join act engendered a willingness to play fast This ideal found its supreme ex- forces against the common enemy of

40 THE NEW REPUBLIC APRIL 27,1998 modernity, which was encroaching on psychological. They are also existential TRB continued from page 6 Eastern Europe in its various forms of and moral—which is why, in our own secularism, socialism, and nationalism. time, Emmanuel Levinas's effort to in- lent crime, deregulated vast industries, Hasidism became steadily institutional- stall ethics at the center of philoso- eliminated the federal budget deficit, ized and routinized. While it continued phy, and Joseph Soloveitchik's eschewal reformed its welfare system, downsized to produce some audacious and pro- of romantic religion in favor of a moral its military, and tackled entitlement found thinkers until the middle of this and intellectual engagement with the growth. Has it done so despite a political century, it lost its creativity as a mass world through the law, and Yeshayahu system characterized by weak parties and movement. For their part, the Mith- Leibowitz's devastating criticisms of a fractionated government made up of a nagdim steadily excised Kabbalah and nationalist idolatry, could all draw on House, Senate, president, and multiple most other non-Talmudic studies from Hayyim of Volozhin and the traditions courts—not to mention 50 states and the curricula of their expanding net- of Mithnagdic austerity. myriad localities—or because of it? Pun- work of academies. Aside from the dits and academics never tire of be- small but influential Mussar movement, healthy suspicion of per- moaning the corruption, disorder, and which encouraged yeshiva students to sonal enthusiasm is surely argument endemic to our sprawling, engage in radical introspection and a corrective to the cult contentious system. But, just as our free- strenuous moral reckoning, it showed of self-fulfillment. But can wheeling economic system encourages less and less interest in any religious this reallAy be the whole story? The long- creativity, the great strength of our expression outside the orbit of Talmu- ings for transcendence, for unity of democracy is the way it allows for, dic study. Today, the assertive ultra- thought and feeling, for connection to indeed encourages, the emergence of Orthodox communities of Israel and the world around us and to the masses new ideas and new leaders. Would America are organized around their of humanity who will never be schol- national welfare reform have succeeded academies, theologically quiescent and ars—surely these longings, too, are in- without the experimentation carried out entirely self-contained. eradicable, and God-given, and parts in states such as New Jersey and Wiscon- of our human constitution. A faith that sin? Ross Perot is an obnoxious arriviste; llan Nadler has performed makes no room for them will wither on such a flamboyant character could never a great service by bring- the vine. For study and service to be- rise through the ranks of Japan's disci- ing the Mithnagdim more come worship, surely there must also plined political parties. But, without the to light. The spiritual uni- be joy. scare he gave the Republicans and the verse Athat he has unearthed with erudi- Democrats, Washington might not have The Mithnagdim themselves were not tion, imagination, and care is now more entirely joyless. Here Nadler scants a addressed his followers' biggest con- accessible to students of Jewish history crucial element of their life, and makes cern: the budget deficit. and of religion in general. But what are them seem a little more terrifying than To be sure, Japan did not create its we today to make of this Mithnagdic they really were. They most certainly did political system by itself. Its constitution sensibility, so at odds with all we think of imbue Torah study with joy, with pas- was devised—and its political class as "religious" or even "spiritual"? What sion. To set foot in a beit midrash, a anointed—by the American occupiers variety of religious experience is this? house of study, with its long tables after World War II. The U.S. was specifi- Indeed, the historical experience of heaped with books and clusters of stu- cally intent on preventing the rise of Mithnagdism highlights the inability of dents analyzing texts aloud, is to be powerful leaders who might lead Japan current categories of "religion" to cap- plunged into an exuberance of sight back down the dangerous road of ture spiritual traditions that express and sound, a living conversation of past nationalism. But, today, both American themselves in terms of study and law. and present. This is study as worship, and Japanese interests would be served In looking at Mithnagdic religion, a thoroughgoing consecration of the by the cultivation of dynamic new politi- one is struclc above all by its austerity. life of the mind. In an extraordinary cal practices, values, and personalities. This is a religious life in which ecstasy passage, which Nadler mentions but Of course, this could be even more and enchantment are secondary and does not quote, Phinehas ben Judah of difficult than reforming the Japanese suspect, and displaced by a humbled Polotsk leaves his readers with an idyll economy. Not only does a more open devotion to the work of the mind and of the house of study as the realization style of democracy go against the grain the study of the text. There is a power- of perfect community: of Japanese culture, but the Japanese fully self-denying quality to Mithnagdic still do not entirely trust themselves to religion, in its willful renunciation of And happy the eye that could see the com- handle a true free market in ideas. One the search for transcendence. This sac- munity of scholars in its proper place, all reason is that it could indeed create new rificing of one's longings on the altar of studying in groups preoccupied with Torah and Talmud ... and among them the space for neo-nationalists, many of sacred study is its own severe faith. It is elders and wise, and the children of the whom are dangerously anti-American, a religion of lowliness, of submission; a wealthy who had rejected the vanities of or harbor loopy notions about recon- permanent prostration before a divine this world and would study with the chil- structing a stronger and more aggres- authority, perfect, infinite, and whole, dren of the poor, from whom (the Talmud sive Japanese military. While economic existing outside of us, which can secure says) the Torah will emerge The hotise reform will benefit most Japanese, those us against our own fallibility and our of study was full of Torah, full of piety, full groups who do suffer could easily fall drift in the world. of humility, with no wandering or sleep or frivolity or idle chatter. It was a sort of under the sway of demagogues. This cautious approach toward one's Eden, where the righteous would dwell in But this is a risk Japan must accept. own religious desires, this skepticism their glory and enjoy the splendor of the The longer the government postpones about enthusiasm in the name of God, Torah ... and God would listen to them, to change, the more painful that change is a powerful and useful corrective to hear what they were saying, and He would will be when it inevitably comes. Japan the self-centeredness of much of what love them. cannot establish a truly modern econ- we call "spirituality," and a powerful an- omy without simultaneously building a chor for the ethical dimension of reli- YEHUDAH MIRSKY is currently a doctoral truly modern democracy. gious life. For the attractions of author- student in religion at Harvard Univer- ity and self-abnegation are only partially sity. CHARLES LANE

APRIL 27,1998 THE NEW REPUBLIC 41