Conceptions of the Sacred in Modern Hasidic Spirituality

The immanent presence of God in all aspects of the physical world is a foundation of early Hasidic thought. In many respects this vision, rooted in a Hasidic theology often called “panentheism,” eclipses the distinctions between the realms of the sacred and the mundane. Early Hasidic spirituality approached all deeds as opportunities for religious service, includ- ing activities such as eating, drinking, business, and even ordinary conversations, as well as traditional devotional practices like study and prayer. Furthermore, the boundaries of holi- Conceptions of the ness do not necessarily end with that which is purely Jewish; some Hasidic masters describe Sacred in Modern gentile stories and songs as possessing “sparks” of divinity as well. Hasidic Spirituality Emerging at the crossroads of modernity, Hasidism’s embracing attitude changed Ariel Evan Mayse as these communities confronted new ideas flowing into Eastern Europe in the years around the Napoleonic conquests. Many Hasidic leaders joined forces with their former antagonists, the misnagdim, and took a stand against the processes of modernization. Their theology changed as they faced new secular ideas and increasing pressures for reform, both from within the Jewish community and from outside it. This gave rise to a bloc of highly conservative religious thinkers, perhaps best described as “ultra-Orthodox,” who fought to maintain their traditions in a battle that was itself the result of a modern crisis. These writers sought to erect impenetrable boundaries between the religious and reform-minded or assimilating communities, and drew strict border lines between Jewish and non-Jewish realms. Seizing upon an ancient rabbinic teaching explaining that the people of Israel were redeemed from Egypt because they did not change their clothing, their language, or their names, Hasidic and other traditionalist Jewish leaders turned maintaining distinctive Jewish customs of speech and dress into flash- points of controversy in the 19th century. 12 Pawel Figurski Pawel Purim, Mea Shearim, Israel. But the experience of modernity and are then contrasted with those of Hillel Zeitlin, the processes of secularization did not bring Martin Buber, and Abraham Joshua Heschel, Hasidic creativity to a standstill. The heart three modern thinkers who recast Hasidic of my research project at the Frankel Institute ideas in light of Western philosophy. They explores how modern Jewish mystics have did so, however, to critique modern culture, reinterpreted elements of Hasidic thought hoping to mobilize the Hasidic tradition in an in an attempt to formulate a contemporary effort to spark the philosophical, ethical, and theological revival. Against the background of spiritual rebirth of contemporary Jewish life. Charles Taylor’s depiction of “the secular age,” Bridging this 20th-century project and drawing on the works of Peter Berger and with my doctoral thesis on Hasidism in the David Biale, I am studying the ways in which 18th century, I am currently writing a mono- six different 20th-century mystical thinkers graph about the fiery Jewish debates on the describe the realms of the sacred and the nature of language in the late 18th and 19th profane (or mundane), as well as the complex centuries. This study examines how different and often porous interface between them. This Jewish thinkers have defined and conceptual- project takes up the writings of Kalonymus ized the “Holy Tongue” (leshon hakodesh)—an Kalman Shapira, Menachem Mendel Schneer- appellation that is usually, but not always, son and Sholom Noach Berezovsky, three associated with Hebrew—as a lens through creative 20th-century masters who approached which to view their various reactions to the the question of how one should engage with processes of modernity and secularization. the physical world and the secular realm in But their writings on this issue also yield some very different ways. The teachings of these surprising claims regarding the possibility imaginative, yet traditional, Hasidic masters of sanctifying all human language. It is not the 13 essence of a language that makes it holy, say some daring Hasidic thinkers, but rather the contemplative intention of its speaker. The goal of this study is to demonstrate that carefully reading Hasidic sermons in multiple contextual layers—both intellectual and historical—will reveal the full conceptual richness, and often innovation, of their ide- ational and theological core. The 19th century was a time of great creativity in Jewish communities across Europe, and Hasidic thought should be seen as a part of this broader continental dialogue of early modernity. As recent scholarship has emphasized, the very notion of “traditionalism” is itself a reaction to modernity, one that is no less innovative than Hillel Zeitlin movements for reform and acculturation. To illustrate this point, we will explore a variety figure. He was especially concerned with the of thinkers who offer new understandings situation of the rootless Jewish youth. Through- of the concept of the “Holy Tongue,” an issue out his career as a public figure, beginning at the heart of many of the great ideological shortly after World War I, he issued calls for debates in this century. The dramatis personae a new organization of Jewish life. In a series of this study hailed from Berlin, Kraków, rural of articles published in the 1920s, he sought Poland/Ukraine, Pressburg (Bratislava), Vilna, to form an elite Jewish spiritual fraternity and Frankfurt am Main. One of my goals is called Yavneh, the most fully elaborated of to demonstrate the surprising interactions his attempts at intentional community. In an between seemingly disparate strands of early- article I co-authored with Arthur Green and modern Jewish thought and theology. This published through the digital journal In Geveb, project, which arose from a close reading of a we collected Zeitlin’s Yiddish writings on the striking yet unknown Hasidic text, has blos- Yavneh fellowship, translating and publishing somed into a lengthy piece that will form the it in both English and Yiddish for the first core of an upcoming book tentatively entitled time. Alongside these texts, we offered a newly Sacred Languages of Modernity. discovered manuscript signed by Zeitlin, a Hillel Zeitlin, mentioned above, single-sheet, four-sided document in which was the leading figure of what may be called he described more succinctly and clearly the philosophical neo-Hasidism among Eastern nature of the group and its intended function. European Jews in the pre-Holocaust era. A This case study, an outgrowth of my work at tireless author, journalist, and polemicist, he the Frankel Institute, represents a historical published constantly in both the Yiddish and example of the enduring power of Hasidic Hebrew press, offering a bold new vision of theology to capture the hearts of minds of contemporary spiritual life grounded in his modern seekers who live in the fertile overlap reading of Hasidic sources. But Zeitlin sought between the secular and the sacred realms. to become an activist as well as a literary 14.

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