Hidden Spark of Hasidism

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CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL

I certify that I have read The Hidden Spark of Hasidism in Martin Bubers

Philosophy of Dialogue by John Alan Taylor and that in my opinion this work

meets the criteria for approving a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements of the Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy and Religion with a

concentration in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness at the California

Institute of Integral Studies.

___________________________________________________________

Robert McDermott, Doctor of Philosophy, Chair

Professor, Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness

___________________________________________________________

Sophia Reinders, Doctor of Philosophy, Marriage and Family Therapist,

Professor, East West Psychology

___________________________________________________________

Kenneth Paul Kramer, Doctor of PhilosophyProfessor Emeritus, Comparative Religious Studies


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2009 John Taylor


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philosophy of dialogue depends on a hidden spark of Hasidism for its image of

the person and meaning of life.

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Acknowledgements

Einstein said that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.

For me it must also be said that these pages stand together because of the love and

support of special friends these last few years. They have supported me and

sometimes I felt as if they carried me until I could see clearly the value of my own

thoughts and ideas. The ideas herein are my own, but this book has come together

because of the love and support of many. Chief among them are Rod ONeal,

Linda Gibler, Jake Sherman, and Gregory Mengel. I would not be who I am today

but for my relationship with each of you. Thank you. Heather Parrish and Doris

Broekema, your supportive love and years of dialogue with me have borne fruit.

When it felt I was alone on this path these are the people I turned to for support.

Also supportive beyond words for me are Susan Spero, Marjorie

Schwarzer, Melinda Adams, and the wonderful staff and students at JFKU. My

sincere thanks go to Tony Grazio for exemplary assistance at the office which

allowed me to take time off to concentrate on this work. Thanks for believing in

me, supporting me, and encouraging me during this project. To my committee

chair Robert McDermott I owe much. To Ken Kramer who helped clarify my

ideas with insightful questions and loving dialogue, your influence is truly found

within these pages, and within my heart. I will continue to learn from your words

for years to come. To Sophia Reinders whose gracious wisdom gently revealed so

much to me over the years, Namastewhich is to say, I bow to the divine I see

through you. To all my friends who encouraged me to believe in myself and

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Table of Contents

Abstract....................................................................................................................v

Acknowledgements................................................................................................viiDedication...............................................................................................................ix

Introduction..............................................................................................................1

Biographical Highlights........................................................................................2

Methodology.........................................................................................................5

Historical Background...........................................................................................13

Mysticism circa 1900..........................................................................................16

Mystical Experience and Religious Language....................................................23

Hasidic Mysticism..............................................................................................25Bubers Hasidism................................................................................................26

Mystical Roots of Hasidic Community...............................................................39

Hasidism.............................................................................................................43

Das Zwichenmenschliche (the Between)............................................................46

Philosophy of Dialogue.......................................................................................48

Bubers Early Mysticism 1899-1904.....................................................................53

Gustav Landauer.................................................................................................53

Meister Eckhart (1260-1328)..............................................................................54

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) and Jacob Boehme (1575-1624)........................55

Mystical Union?..................................................................................................62

The New Community and Mystical Lived Experience.......................................70

Mystical Language..............................................................................................75

The Implications of Bubers Mysticism.............................................................81

The Unified Life.................................................................................................83

Bubers Hasidism...................................................................................................87

The Baal Shem Tov............................................................................................92

Teachings of the Baal Shem...............................................................................96

HitlahavutEcstasy...........................................................................................97

AvodaService................................................................................................102

KavanaIntention............................................................................................107

Creation and Redemption in Hasidism..........................................................108

ShiflutHumility..............................................................................................111

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Reference List......................................................................................................213

Appendix A: Additional Works...........................................................................219

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Introduction

The distinction between religion and philosophy has often been disputed.

It begins to clear, if at all, only after one spends years living and learning in each

realm. For Martin Buber, both religion and philosophy were central issues in his

writing. His religion never settled on any dogmatic statements. His philosophy

never crystallized into a system of ideas. Both religion and philosophy were

always questions for Buber that must be lived rather than codified. He was never

able to provide a final word or conclusion for either. Near the end of his life he

described his best efforts as pointing the way, not to a destination but toward

the journey itself. He was primarily concerned with the close connection between

ones relation to ones fellow person and ones relation to God. His philosophy of

dialogue, brought to the public inI and Thou in 1923, began his continuing and

passionate writing on the significance of relationship. His previous interest and

study of mysticism faded, but did not disappear, as he found life-giving meaning

in understanding the value of relationship in authentic dialogue. Buber found the

presence of the eternal refracted in authentic dialogue whenever a person opens

the heart and mind to the true otherness of the other. For Buber, authentic

relationships manifest a spark of the divine, and in every moment there exists the

possibility of evoking the eternal. Bubers life itself models the realization of

eternal presence between intrapsychic experience and interpersonal relationships.

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Biographical Highlights

There are several good biographies available on Martin Buber. The short

biographical review presented here intends to assist the reader unfamiliar with

touchstones of Bubers life in order to trace the development of his ideas that are

presented in this dissertation. Maurice Freidman is considered the most prominent

biographer of Martin Buber in English with several biographies in print,1 and

Grete Schaeders biographical history The Hebrew Humanism of Martin Buber

places Bubers life in a rich context of the changing world around him.

Martin Buber was born in 1878 to a wealthy and respected Jewish family.

His father Carls primary occupation was agriculture. When Martin was three

years old, his mother disappeared; he did not see her again for thirty years. In

retrospect Martin called this his first mis-meeting. Without a mother, Martin

was sent to live with his grandparents, Solomon and Adele Buber. His grandfather

owned significant properties, including mines and farms. He spent his time as a

businessman and interpreter of rabbinic literature. Solomon Buber was well

respected for his published interpretations of scripture. Martins grandmother

insisted on private tutors for him, emphasizing language and humanities studies,

at which Martin excelled. Although raised in a practicing Jewish household, after

his bar-mitzvah, at which he lectured on a philosophical text of Frederick Schiller

rather than interpreting a section of the Hebrew Scripture, Buber left the traditions

of Judaism behind in favor of humanism during his university studies.

1 Friedman, Maurice S. Martin Buber: The life of dialogue, 1955. Bubers Lifeand Work, 1981.Encounter on the narrow ridge: A life of Martin Buber, 1991.

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In 1897, Buber, fully supported by his father and grandparents, studied

literature, the history of art, and philosophy for two semesters at the University of

Vienna. In 1898 he identified himself as a Zionist, which proved to be a short-

lived stage of his life. He also studied at the University of Leipzig and in the

summer of 1899 at the University of Zurich. In 1899 at a Germanics seminar at

the University of Zurich, he met Paula Winkler, whom he later married. By 1899

Buber was involved in the New Community where he met Gustav Landauer, who

encouraged Buber to change his university studies from literature and art history

to philosophy and mysticism. In 1904 Buber presented his dissertation entitled

The history of the problem of individuation to the University of Vienna and was

awarded his doctoral degree. By 1906 Buber had disavowed the fragmenting

politics of the Zionist movement and had already spent years studying Hasidism,2

resulting in the publication of his Teachings of Rabbi Nachman in1906 and

Legends of the Baal-Shem in 1908. His compilation of mystical writings,

collected while researching for his dissertation, was published asEcstatic

Confessions in 1909. As a spokesman for modern Judaism since his college days,

and as an editor for the Jewish journalDer Jude, he published many of essays

throughout his early years on a wide variety of Jewish issues, including the

preface toDie Gesellschaft(The Society) in 1906, in which he first used the term

between. His novelDaniel, considered a stepping-stone from his earlier

2 Hasidism refers to several unrelated groups of Jews whose commitment was to

the realization of piety in their relation to the divine in this earthly life. Buber specifically

uses it to refer to the followers of the Baal Shem Tov (1710-1760), a charismatic Jew of

Eastern Europe. The term is derived from the Hebrew hesedwhich Buber defines asgracious one with direct reference to the loving-kindness of God toward all His

creation. It also is translated pious though not in a specifically religious sense. seeBuber,Legend of the Baal Shem, 212.

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followed in 1960. Hasidism remained a major influence on his life, his thinking,

and his philosophy of dialogue.

Methodology

This dissertation approaches Martin Bubers writing with a dialogical

methodology. Within the realm of the theoretical, I take an interpretive relation to

his writings to bring forward new insight. In so doing I stand within the tradition

of scholarship which includes Martin Bubers interpretation of Hasidism and

Gershom Scholems subsequent interpretation of Kabbalah.3

Martin Buber approached the Hasidic texts from within his Jewish

heritage and his sympathy with mysticism. He published these legendary stories

to evoke not only their Jewish sensibility, but also to rekindle an engagement with

spirit in each reader. Gershom Scholems commitment to objectivity in historical

research brought him to the same period of Jewish history with an entirely

different purpose. Scholem declared that Bubers preference for legends as

primary source material "reveals a methodological principle of approach which I

consider more than questionable."4 He concluded his critique of Buber by saying

that if we are to understand the actual phenomenon of Hasidism "we shall, I am

afraid, have to start all over again."5

3 Literally translated, kabbalah means what has been received through tradition.It refers to the mystical theology of Judaism which seeks to set in balance the physical

and spiritual worlds. see Buber,Legend of the Baal Shem, 213 and Matt, The EssentialKabbalah, 1.

4 Scholem, Martin Bubers Hasidism, 308.


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Within the realm of the relational, Bubers primary goal was not the

understanding of Hasidism per se, but his encounter with the eternal truth he

found present in the Hasidic teachings. His engagement with the Hasidic

teachings and the truth they reveal grew to become a dialogue with the text itself,

and became his method of interpretation of the texts. He anticipated the

hermeneutic principle of Hans Georg Gadamer, who in his bookTruth and

Method, describes scholarly research as a conversation with the text from which

the reader emerges transformed.6 Though this line of thought is distinctly

reminiscent of Bubers contribution of the philosophy of dialogue, Gadamer relies

not on Buber, but on Plato to make his point.7Steven Kepnes follows Gadamers

insight with his hermeneutic interpretation of Buber and Scholem to appreciate

that each author extracts from Hasidism that which is necessary to highlight the

spiritual wisdom appropriate to demonstrate his point. Kepnes finds room for both

interpretations, declaring that neither author is exempt from preconceptions, nor is

it desirable to be.8

Following Gadamer and Kepnes dialogical hermeneutic, I embrace the

approaches of both Buber and Scholem, even though in tension with each other,

as appropriate responses to Hasidism. Focusing on BubersLegend of the Baal

Shem, I demonstrate the unique personality of this text which expects each reader

to position him or herself in a relationship of participation. This prepares the way

6 Gadamer, Truth and Method, 245ff.

7 Kepnes, A Hermeneutic Approach, 92.


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for a similar investigation of Bubers seminal work,I and Thou, from which his

philosophy of dialogue grew.

My interpretive method also embodies my conversation with the text, and

allows the text to change me in the process. Rather than seek a historically

accurate understanding of the times of the Baal Shem, as did Rosman inFounder

of Hasidism, I follow Bubers dialogical engagement with the text responding to it

ever anew. Working with Bubers thoughts has required the analysis of my own

culture and language with an openness that demanded personal change as a

response. Authentic dialogue is not possible without authentic listening, and I

have worked to listen carefully to the text. Buber hoped that by bringing the

legends of the Baal Shem to the modern world he could stir up the spark of Jewish

religiositya life that bears witness to God, that, because it is lived in His name,

transmutes Him from an abstract truth into a reality.9 Through every person the

mystical reality of otherness brings into actuality encountering the eternal.

Approached authentically, dialogue has become more present in my life because

of my encounter with Bubers writings.

This dialogue has affected my life in ways recognized, and unrecognized.

My dialogue with the text as a method of study brings a flexibility to research that

allows the writing to be more than just ink on page, or sage historical ideas; it

allows the text to speak and require a response. This relationship with the text

allows the humanness of the author to influence the reader through his writings

long after he is gone. Such a connection with the author brings to life an I-Thou

relationship between the text and reader. Only after such an encounter with

9 Buber, On Judaism, 12.

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Bubers ideasonly after an experience of I-Thou which reveals the eternal Thou

can a comparison of the mystical content ofI and Thou be juxtaposed to

Bubers early Hasidic works. Within the context of a lived relationship to Bubers

writings an examination of the mystical themes and the daily life experiences

described by Buber leads to a more authentic understanding of his writings. From

this perspective it becomes apparent in both Bubers early writings and his later

philosophy of dialogue that the transcendent and the immanent are potentially

present in the details of daily life, when we open our hearts and eyes.

Undoubtedly, applying this methodology to the entire corpus of Bubers

writings would find that he consistently strove to genuinely encounter others

presence throughout his lifetime, but I have limited myself to his early mysticism,

Hasidic writings, and his philosophy of dialogue. I do not address his later

writings on educational pedagogy, which would not easily fit in either a

manipulative I-It relation or the mutual reciprocity of an I-Thou relationship.

Buber describes the role of teacher and student as a managed relationship in

which the teacher remains responsible for guiding the thinking of the student, and

thus not an interaction of equals. I also omit his psychological conversations and

writings, albeit quite interesting in their own right and significant in their

correspondence to Rogerian therapy and influential to other psychotherapeutic

modalities. After moving to Jerusalem his writings on politics and the formation

of the Israeli nation continue his theme of openness and dialogue as is evidenced

in his proposal to include both Palestinian and Jew in any new government. His

ideas were not well accepted and limited the role he was allowed in Israeli

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politics, though he continued to be in conversation with individuals within the

government throughout his lifetime.

* * * * *

To lay a foundation of understanding Bubers lifelong search for a bridge

connecting the transcendent and the mundane, I first look at publications

describing mysticism that were popular in that time. William James sets the

academic description of mysticism; Evelyn Underhill the popular. Both were well

known writers in their day whose books have stood the test of time. The

Historical Background chapter attempts to frame a contemporary understanding

of mysticism when Buber was at the university, and provides a conceptual

background for his engagement with mysticism

The following chapter, Bubers Early Mysticism, outlines Bubers

youthful enthusiasm with mysticism as represented by his dissertation, friendship

with Gustav Landauer, and his role in the New Community. He was at that time

very interested in mysticism and its role in human life. He intended even at this

early stage to live a life grounded in a practical mysticism.

The next chapter, Bubers Hasidism, begins with his relationship to the

Zionist movement souring. At this time in his life a new stage begins. He returns

to his Jewish heritage to study the Baal Shem Tov and the Hasidic movement of

Eastern Europe from 1750-1810. As a result of years of study, Buber publishes

the first interpretation/translation of Hasidic legends for modern European Jews.

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His Hasidism brings to light the primary themes of Hasidic Judaism which

entranced him so much that he said that its blood flowed through his veins.

The short chapter From Hasidism toward Dialogue sets out the transition

in Bubers metaphysical outlook during the era of the Great War. Though he

records a single conversation with a single soldier to be the impetus of his

transformation, history reveals a far more nuanced and complex transition.

Bubers relationship with Gustav Landauer during the tumultuous war years had

profound impact on Bubers ideas and subsequent writings.

The next chapter, Bubers Philosophy of Dialogue, initiates a third stage.

At first the basic concepts within Bubers philosophy of dialogue are presented

without reference to Hasidism. His primary words I-It and I-Thou, and the

concept of the eternal Thou shed light into Bubers philosophical thinking inI

and Thou.

The Hallowing Dialogue chapter finds that Buber returned to study and

write on Hasidism revealingand herein lies the ultimate focus of the studythe

hallowing10 of dialogue. Bubers interest never left Hasidism. The primal concepts

of relationship that began in his early Hasidic writings and matured in his

philosophy of dialogue reappear even more directly as spiritual teachings

concerning relationship and finding meaning in life.

The final chapter, Meaning Between Persons, identifies six core

characteristics of Bubers lifelong attempt to bind the sacred and profane in

10Buber uses the term hallowing not in the customary denotation of setting

something aside for sacred use, but instead, by reverently using it, to reveal its inherent

sacred dimension.

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personal relationships. The dissertation concludes with a summary of these central

concepts which remained consistent from his early Hasidic writings through his

philosophy of dialogue.

* * * * *

In the second English translation ofI and Thou, Walter Kaufmann

expresses his dissatisfaction with the translation of the GermanDu to the English

Thou. He states,

Thou and You are not the same. Nor is Thou very similar to the

GermanDu. German lovers sayDu to one another, and so do

friends.Du is spontaneous and unpretentious, remote fromformality, pomp, and dignity. What lovers or friends say Thou to

one another? Thou is scarcely ever said spontaneously. Thouimmediately brings to mind God.11

For me, neitherYou norThou is an adequate translation of the GermanDu. You

remains too common a usage, without any assumption of respect or even

recognition, as in Hey, you! when chasing after a thief on the street. This You

has no place in Bubers I-Thou relationship. With equally inappropriate

inferences Thou implies a reverence not often visible in interpersonal

relationships. In English people are more likely to coin nicknames for one another

to demonstrate intimacy in relationships. Most often in my experience the

intimacy ofThou is said without words. You lacks this intimacy. Thou includes a

reverence of the other which is critical to Bubers thoughts. As Kaufmann

reminds, Bubers central desire is to make the secular sacred.12 For me, Thou

comes far closer than You to representing this potential relationship between

11 Buber, trans., Kaufmann,I and Thou, 14.

12 Buber, trans., Kaufmann,I and Thou, 23.

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persons. Thou reminds that the divine can exist in how we relate to each other.

Thou implies a reverence of the other, and in so doing invites the eternal Thou

into each relationship. Because I find Thou more consistent with the Bubers

central theme, I preferThou as the translation ofDu and will use Thou

throughout this dissertation.

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Historical Background

In his more than sixty years of writing, Martin Buber's work always

exhibited a consistent relationship to the Hasidic Jews of the eighteenth century.

Hasidism has its roots deep in the mystical tradition of Kabbalah, but in the

eighteenth century brought forth a unique communal enthusiasm which exercised

a profound impact on most European Jews. This Hasidic Judaism forms the

foundation and enduring influence of Buber's thinking, even when unmentioned

in the text. Grete Schaeder sees in Bubers earliest writings on Hasidism the

seminal ideas that would become his famous theory of dialogue expressed in I

and Thou.13Though Buber continued writing about Hasidism throughout his

career, after World War I a theme of relationship began to arise in his work and

ultimately became his philosophy of dialogue.

Buber was the first significant writer to popularize Hasidic Judaism. His

interpretation stood unchallenged for almost forty years until near the end of his

career when Gershom Scholem began to critique the historical accuracy of

Buber's Hasidism. Scholem argued that Bubers source materialthe myths and

legendswere an inaccurate depiction of Hasidic beliefs. Scholem argued that

Buber distorted Hasidism in order to more easily illustrate his message.14 A public

disagreement continued until Buber's death and beyond. Many authors have

brought their experience and perspective to this conflict of opinion in an attempt

to resolve it. Some authors, such as Grete Schaeder, significantly agree with

13 Schaeder,Hebrew Humanism, 55.


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Buber while others, particularly Rivka Schatz-Uffenheimer, support Scholem's

critique.15 Michael Oppenheim brings a conciliatory position.16 Steven Kepnes

brings new scholarly methods to the conversation, citing Heidegger, Gadamer,

and Jung to understand the dynamics of this argument.17Kepnes explains that

Buber applied his own methodology of dialogue to the Hasidic texts he translated.

In so doing, Kepnes opens a new facet of relationship between text and reader in

Text as Thou. Moshe Idel explores the original documents of Hasidism, revising

many of Scholems sources with very different findings.18 Disputing Scholem,

Idel finds a significant record of Jewish mystical union exists in the Hasidic

literature. As the understanding of the historical documents of Hasidism grows

more detailed and more complex, Idel finds both mythical and magical activities

to be normative in Hasidic literature. In his search for the historical Baal Shem,

Moshe Rosman offers the most historically detailed understanding of the life and

time of the Baal Shem available in print.19 He digs into city records and discovers

a well established and respected Baal Shem paying tax in the prosperous and

politically enlightened city of Miedzyboz. His research offers new insight into the

Jewish communities and a significant re-definition of the title Baal Shem. Martina

Urban recently published her study identifying a hermeneutics of renewal in

Bubers presentation of Hasidism. She also highlights his incomplete and often

15 Schatz-Uffenheimer,Mans Relation to God 404.

16 Oppenheim, The Meaning of Hasidut, 410.


18 Idel,Hasidism, 29.

19 Rosman,Founder of Hasidism, 4.

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inadequate representation of the Hasidism of history.20According to Urban, Buber

often omits as much significant information about the practices of the Hasidim as

he includes, and thus biases the history in order to lay the foundation for the

rediscovery of Judaism as a spiritually meaningful mode of being.21 Throughout

the recent research Bubers early depiction of Hasidism weathers the storm of

controversy and remains afloat, but with an understanding that he did not present

the whole picture of Hasidism, only enough to support his purposeto rekindle

the soul-force of Judaism to see God in each created thing and reach toward God

through each pure deed.

In this dissertation I describe Bubers lifelong interest in the presence of

the eternal in immanent events in three stages: 1) his earlyErlebnis-mysticism

(experience based mysticism), in which transcendent reverie plays a significant

role; 2) his study of Hasidism, and the ethical mysticism revealed in Hasidic tales;

and 3) the mystical presence in his philosophy of dialogue. Through all three

stages there runs a common thread identifying the role of the person in

encountering the eternal in potentially any aspect of daily living. In his early

writings the emphasis lies on the intrapersonal, the transcendent reverie, and

experiencing each moment. In his philosophy of dialogue the emphasis transitions

to the relationships between persons. To understand the similarities in these three

stages of development in Bubers thinking and the distinction of the role of the

20 Urban, Hermeneutics of Renewal, 19ff.

21 Urban, Hermeneutics of Renewal, 52.

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person in each, a short historical review will explore the human capacity for

mystical experience that Buber explored throughout his life.

Mysticism circa 1900

William James Gifford lectures of 1901-1902, published as Varieties of

Religious Experience set the standard for understanding the human religious

consciousness at the turn of the century. Looking broadly at religious experience

he suggests

our normal consciousness, rational consciousness a we call it, isbut one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted

from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of

consciousness entirely different.22

Evelyn Underhill, in Mysticism later argues that though our capacity to perceive

the world appears immutable, that capacity is not fixed but quite flexible. Should

our perceptive capacity change, the world we experience would change in

parallel. Her research on Christian mystics led her to report mystics claim that in

their ecstasies they change the conditions of consciousness, and apprehend a

deeper reality.23 Having canvassed the literature of mysticism, albeit with a

distinctively Christian bias, Underhill described the mystical experience as:

a gradual and complete change in the equilibrium of the self. It is a

change whereby that self turns from the unreal world of sense inwhich it is normally immersed, first to apprehend, then to unite

itself with Absolute Reality: finally, possessed by and wholly

surrendered to this Transcendent Life, [the mystic] becomes a

medium whereby the spiritual world is seen in a unique degreeoperating directly in the world of sense. In other words, we are to

see the human mind advance from the mere perception ofphenomena, through the intuitionwith occasional contactof

22 James, Varieties, 305.

23 Underhill, Mysticism, 31.

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the Absolute under its aspect of Divine Transcendence, to the

entire realization of, and union with, Absolute Life under its aspect

of Divine Immanence.24

The mystic bridges the chasmthe apparent separationof self and other

in the unitive state. According to Underhill, the mystic

is the meeting-place between two orders. On the one hand heknows, and rests in, the eternal world of Pure Being present to him

in his ecstasies, attained by him in the union of love. On the other,

he knowsand works inthat stormy sea, the vital World of

Becoming which is the expression of Its will.25

Bridging the gap between being and becoming, between the transcendent and the

mundane, between self and other, and between passivity and activity, lies at the

core of the unitive experience. It has also been called the journey of return to the

source. For the mystic, this journey is a hunger of both heart and intellect for

ultimate truth.26 Underhill also asserts that mystics consider this unitive

experience to be the only secure path to knowledge of reality. Yet knowledge is a

misleading word here. Mystics may or may not (typically not) return from the

unitive experience with any objective information, but perhaps with a kind of

insight which William James calls noetic. At the very least, they return with an

assurance of divine love for them and for every individual. What mystics know

from such experiences, they know without the intellect, but they know it

undeniably. James asserts that mystical knowledge can only be considered

authoritative for those who achieve it firsthand; yet the transformed lives of the




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ways. Intellectual understanding does not predominate in this non-rational

consciousness.

To achieve this unitive state of consciousness, mystical traditions almost

universally describe the need to set aside the ego, to eliminate sensory input, and

to silence all thoughts.

Mysticism implies the abolition of individuality; of that hard

separateness, the I, Me, mine which makes of man a finite

isolated thing. It is essentially a movement of the heart, seeking totranscend the limitations of the individual standpoint and to

surrender to ultimate Reality; for no personal gain, to satisfy no

transcendental curiosity, to obtain no other-worldly joys, but

purely from an instinct of love.

29

The state of self-dissolution and unity with the One is not usually attained through

a simple or quick process. Underhill sees that process as a journey involving a

series of states that oscillate between pleasure and pain that may ultimately result

in the unitive experience.30The journey begins with a primary break from

dependence on the sensory-intellectual world assumed to be true reality. This

developing consciousness culminates in a life lived in closer and deeper

dependence on the divine: a conscious participation, and active union with the

infinite and eternal.31

Dionysius the Aeropagite in the fourth century similarly said that

heavenly Truth is accessible only through unceasing and absolute renunciation of

29 Underhill, Mysticism, 71.In the early twentieth century it was acceptable to refer

to humanity in the singular word man. Recognizing the inappropriateness of thisomission of the feminine, I have attempted to include men and women in my use of the

wordsperson and individual. When using direct quotations, I have retained the

inappropriately gendered original language.



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the self and all things.32 Mysticism is the only science, in that words original

meaning as a method of knowing, to postulate the existence of the Absolute and

an essential human relationship to the Absolute. Indeed, the lives of the great

mystics throughout history manifest this essential relationship to the Absolute and

reveal possible steps toward its attainment. Inherent in mysticism is the

undeniable, yet improvable certainty that the spirit of man, itself essentially

divine, is capable of immediate communion with God, the One Reality.33

This journey toward ultimate oneness appears in all cultures. The various

descriptions throughout the world have significant similarities and illustrative

differences which suggest the experience to be both universal and at least to some

degree culturally determined. The experience of oneness can also be found in

non-religious settings as well. In the third century BCE, Plotinus reports his

experience of it in these words:

No doubt we should not speak of seeing, but instead of seen and

seer, speak boldly of a simple unity. For in this seeing we neither

distinguish nor are there two. The man is merged with theSupreme, one with it. Only in separation is there duality. This is

why the vision baffles telling; for how can a man bring back

tidings of the Supreme as detached when he has seen it as one withhimself.34

Even though the experience of oneness may be found in all cultures, its

description and interpretation varies from culture to culture. Although there is no

universal uniformity, there are consistently recurring themes. For example,

Plotinus, famous for his description of the mystical state as the flight of the alone

32 Rolt,Dionysius the Aeropagite, 191.


34 Plotinus,Enneads 6.9.11.

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suffering, abundance or lack, regardless of attraction or connection to worldly

items and events. The soul should be as dead, or dispassionate.37 Concerning

time, Eckhart teaches that the soul must lose itself and consciousness of all

temporal things to experience the consciousness of God. In losing itself, the soul

finds itself again in God knowing itself and all else in divine perfection.38

Eckharts interpretation of his mystical experience offers a divine meaningfulness

to daily life. The unitive experience does not ultimately separate the mystic from

daily life, but supports finding greater meaning in daily living. The unitive

experience is not of this world, but it brings something back into this mundane

world.

Eckhart is very clear in the unitive capacity of the human spirit. Yet

statements like these draw the enmity of dogmatic religious traditionalists in all

times. Despite such opposition, Eckharts view that the divine is the source and

ground, sharing essential qualities with the human spirit, continues to influence

believers. In the mystic view, the divine spirit has the capacity to permeate the

human spirit because both are expressions of the divine source.

Jacob Boehme, a Christian mystic of the sixteenth century whose writings

appeared in Bubers dissertation and influenced his thought during his college

years, describes the shared unity of essence between God and human being

through the metaphor of iron and fire.

Behold a bright flaming piece of iron, which of itself is dark and

black, and the fire so penetrates and shines through the iron, that it

37 Meister Eckhart, 130.


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gives light. Now, the iron does not cease to be; it is iron still: and

the source of the fire retains its own propriety: it does not take the

iron into it, but it penetrates (and shines) through the iron; and it isiron then as well as before, free in itself: and so also is the source

or property of the fire. In such a manner is the soul set in the Deity;

the Deity penetrates through the soul, and dwells in the soul, yetthe soul does not comprehend the Deity, but the Deity

comprehends the soul, but does not alter it (from being a soul) but

only gives it the divine source (or property) of the Majesty.39

As this account suggests, mystics who experience unitive states with the divine

need to describe them in a manner understandable and acceptable to their

community. The more emotional and less philosophical mystics such as St.

Teresa, immediately and completely interpret their experience within the language

of Christian tradition. It is only the more philosophically aware mystics, such as

Eckhart or Boehme, who provides a more subtle interpretation of their experience

and offer descriptions of mystical union in new or different metaphors.

Mystical Experience and Religious Language

Every culture or group in the process of forming community within its

members establishes what is acceptable practice in that community. This

differentiation empowers as well as limits the individual. Religious authority in

general has a vested interest in sustaining tradition, and therefore guards against

and punishes heresy. Each tradition employs unique rituals with symbolic

meanings to express their belief. Therefore, two mystical persons from different

religious traditions might describe largely similar mystical events in very different

language, each account reflecting its particular tradition. Additionally,

experiences largely accepted within a tradition define the normative results of

39 Underhill, Mysticism, 421 from The Threefold Life of Man, chap 6, 88.

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religious practice, building an expectation of what a future practitioner might

encounter. Expectation, as well as language descriptive of previous experience by

others, colors every future experienceor at the very least, it colors the

interpretation of those experiences. This is especially true of any mystical

experience that by its nature strains the power of words to express. Mystics must

always take care to describe their experience within the bounds of their tradition,

or risk the charge of heresy. For example, consider one of Eckharts descriptions

of the unitive experience: If I am to know God directly, I must become

completely He and He I: so that this He and this I become and are one I.

40

Church authorities saw Eckharts claims of identity with God like the one above

as heretical statements that stand outside true Christian belief. For such

statements, Eckhart was ultimately convicted of heresy one week after his death,

and excommunicated from the Church. Eckharts statements of unity with the

divine, because they were unacceptable for contemporary authorities of the

Vatican, resulted in his excommunication from the Catholic Church. History of

theology, without regard to religious authority, has judged Eckhart as one of the

most valuable Christian medieval mystics, based on the numbers who have

benefitted from his writings.41

Hasidic Mysticism

The Jewish tradition may be the most stringent of all in their disavowal of

union between human and divine. The gulf that separates the created from the


41 McGinn, Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart, 20.

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Creator is never breached in Hebrew Scriptures, where to be in the presence of the

Lord was to risk death. In Exodus, the founding story of the Hebrew nations

relationship with God, God said to Moses I will show you my glory, but you

cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live.42 Even the mountain upon

which God revealed himself to Moses and gave the Ten Commandments was

declared sacred, upon which no person should walk under penalty of death.43 With

such a stringent beginning the concept of union with God remained impossible in

the received Hebrew tradition. Because culture and expectation influence the

religious record, we cannot know if complete union did, or did not, happen among

the Jews, but only that if it did, it would not have been acceptable to call it

complete union with God.44

Bubers Hasidism

From his earliest publications, scholars questioned the historicity of

Bubers presentation of Hasidism. The diary entries and correspondence of

Michael Berdyczewski, a colleague and contemporary historian of Judaism,

record a different view of Hasidism than Buber presented to European society.45

In April 1908, shortly after the publication of theLegends of the Baal Shem,

Berdyczewski wrote to Buber:

42 Exodus 33:19-20.

43 Exodus 19:12.

44Idel documents unitive mystical experiences in Kabbalah and Hasidism, and

claims syncretism with other belief systems inHasidism: Between ecstasy and magic.

45 Cutter, The Buber and Berdyczewski Correspondence, 200.

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Your legends gave me pleasure, and although I now incline toward more

realistic literature, they kept me under their spell as much by what is

immanent in them as by what they say directly. Had they appeared underyour own aegis, I could stop here, since I do not like to criticize people to

their face. But since you have given your tales a sense of historical

background, I will not refrain from saying that in my view you have notentirely done justice to that background. But the Chassidic [sic] sources

should have been subjected to more sorting and sifting. Yet what I object

to even more is that you occasionally have introduced into the talestouches of your own that do not in reality belong there. 46

The continued conversation between Buber and Berdyczewski makes explicit

Bubers intention to bring forth the message of the creative role of the human in

the redemption of the world, rather than a purely historic depiction of Hasidism.

Buber continued his work with the Hasidic figures in his publications The

Great Maggid and His Succession (1921), The Hidden Light(1924) andHasidism

(1948).47 In the preface to his most honored Hasidic text The Tales of the Hasidim

(1946) he explains that until his immigration to Israel in 1938 he had thought his

studies of Hasidism complete, but once in Jerusalem he began them anew. In

these books he told the stories of the Baal Shem and those who followed in his

footsteps as leaders of the community.

Gershom Scholem, considered the most respected and influential scholar

of Judaism of the twentieth century, years after Bubers original publications

about Hasidism initiated an academic critique of Bubers scholarship on

Hasidism. His disagreement directly addressed the historicity and authenticity of

Bubers ideas focusing on the source material of Bubers tales, and the

questionable historicity of Bubers use of the concept ofdevekutcleaving to

46 Cutter, The Buber and Berdyczewski Correspondence, 174.

47These essays were published in English inHasidism and Modern Man (1958)

and Originand Meaning of Hasidism (1960).

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God. In 1941 Scholem established himself as a Kabbalah scholar with his Major

Trends in Jewish Mysticism. In 1961 he published his article Martin Bubers

Hasidism: A Critique, which decisively changed Hasidic studies. By revealing

traditional Kabbalah practices of the Hasidic Jews which Martin Buber had

popularized as unique and original, Scholem undermined Bubers claims for the

uniqueness of Hasidism. He wrote that Buber combined facts and quotations as

suits his purpose, which is to present Hasidism as a spiritual phenomenon and not

as a historical one.48

In 1963 (German, 1967 English) the seriesLibrary of Living Philosophers

published a collection of essays about Martin Bubers work, and his reply to his

critics. Though many significant essays are included in this work, by brilliant

thinkers and scholars such as Gabriel Marcel, Charles Hartshorne, Immanuel

Levinas, Emil Fackenheim, Emil Brunner, Nahum Glatzer and others, the single

essay which took up the question of Bubers interpretation of historic Hasidism

was written by Rivkah Schatz-Uffenheimer, a student of Gershom Scholem,

entitled Mans Relation to God and World in Bubers Rendering of the Hasidic

Teaching. She sees in Bubers Hasidism the closing of the chasm between God

and world,49 which for her was an inaccurate depiction of the Hasidic worldview.

In 1966 Grete Schaeder, inspired by her personal friendship with Buber

during the last five years of his life, published The Hebrew Humanism of Martin

Buber. She responded to many of the critiques leveled against Buber. She


49 Schatz-Uffenheimer,Mans Relation to God, 404.

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brings to attention Bubers relation to the text as a Thou. Scholem disavowed

any personal relationship with the textper se and relies on history to understand

the text. In so doing, he approached a more objective knowledge of Hasidic times

and culture. Yet Kepnes questioned why Scholem's "objective" approach to

Hasidic texts is more appropriate than Buber's romantic approach. Citing

contemporary theorist Hans-Georg Gadamer, Kepnes argued that it is not only

impossible for a historian to shed preconceptions, in this case to look at history

"objectively" and "scientifically," but that it is "often not desirable to do so."52In

Gadamer's words, scholarly research may be described as "a conversation with the

text," from which the reader emerges transformed.53 Though this line of thought is

distinctly reminiscent of Buber's contribution of the philosophy of dialogue,

Gadamer relies not on Buber, but Plato to make his point. Kepnes concluded that

Scholem's contribution would have been stronger if he had acknowledged his own

interpretive role and that Buber should have made use of the historical-critical

methods which could have more firmly established his presentation of the Hasidic

teachings. In 1988 Laurence Silberstein applied modern literary criticism to the

Buber-Scholem controversy concluding that both writers were appropriate to their

intentions and made valid use of the historical literature, though for irreconcilable

purposes.

InKabbalah: New Perspectives (1988), Moshe Idel intends to overturn

contemporary knowledge concerning Kabbalistic mysticism. In original Hasidic


53 Gadamer, Truth and Method, 245.

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documents, he finds undeniable discussion of the moment ofunio mystica

mystical union with God, which Scholem had said could never exist in Jewish

mysticism. With this insight Idel bridged the ideological chasm separating Jewish

mysticism from other worldwide expressions of mysticism and compared Jewish

mysticism with other mystical traditions. With this and other points that

undermine Scholems argument with Buber, Idel reestablishes the validity of

Bubers presentation of Hasidism.

The Hasidism popularized by Buber, and subsequently discredited to some

degree by Scholem, may be the clearest example in Jewish history of a Jewish

community that embraced mystical union with God. In Hasidic literature the

descriptive words for mystical union become the terms devekut(cleaving to God)

andAyin (attainment of the Nothing).54 Moshe Idels research into Hasidic

mystical and magical55 practices supports Bubers interpretation and reveals that

Hasidic mysticism envisions the union of man with the divine much more

strongly than was emphasized by Buber.56 Bubers retelling of Hasidism

emphasized the devotional aspects of their faith. In the Jewish tradition, Buber

accepts the separation between God and man, yet he also emphasizes the presence

of God throughout the world, where people struggle and hope.57


55 Idel uses the word magic primarily to describe the role of the mystic in bringingblessing from God back to the community because of an increase of spiritual power

gained during the mystical experience.


57 Bertman, Buber: Mysticism without loss of identity, 82.

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The idea that unitive mystical experiences exist within Judaism,

specifically within the Hasidic Judaism that Buber popularized, has been

proposed by scholars only in the last two generations. Previous to this short period

of acceptance of the unitive characteristic as applicable in Jewish mysticism, all

Jewish mysticism was considered different than the unitive mysticism found

worldwide. Because of the scriptural injunctions against union with God, the

uniqueness of the language of Jewish mysticism, and the profound scholarship of

Gershom Scholem in his widely acclaimed analytical study of Jewish mystical

trends, scholars have accepted that the unitive mystical experience was not found

within the Jewish tradition. Although Buber popularized the movement now

known as classical Hasidism, Scholem rose to be known as the leading scholar of

Jewish mysticism, and therefore an authority on the movement. In their writings

about Hasidism, both Buber and Scholem acknowledged that a profound and

unusual spirit inflamed a certain population of Jewish people around 1750. As

Scholem said,

In Hasidism, within a geographically small area and also within a

surprisingly short period, the ghetto gave birth to a whole galaxy ofsaint-mystics, each of them a startling individuality. The incredible

intensity of creative religious feeling, which manifested itself in

Hasidism between 1750 and 1800, produced a wealth of truly

original religious types which, as far as one can judge, surpassedeven the harvest of the classical period of Safed.58

Scholem begins his groundbreaking work, Major Trends in Jewish

Mysticism, with an examination of the historical development of religion and its

characteristics. He identifies that human religious experience has gone through

58 Scholem, Major Trends, 337.

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analogy primary tools in the quest.62 Scholems use of a mystical interpretation of

the Exodus is an excellent example.

Thus the exodus from Egypt, the fundamental event of our history,

cannot, according to the mystic, have come to pass once only andin one place; it must correspond to an event which takes place in

ourselves, an exodus from an inner Egypt in which we are all

slaves. Only thus conceived does the Exodus cease to be an objectof learning and acquire the dignity of immediate religious

experience.63

Scholems interest in Hasidism is primarily historical, seeing it as the most recent

expression of the larger history of Jewish mysticism which is intertwined with

Kabbalah.

64

Bubers approach to Hasidism, in contrast, is primarily

phenomenological and concerned with determining the helpful characteristics of

religious enthusiasm to support a modern lifestyle. Scholems analysis of Jewish

mysticism interprets as much as it clarifies Jewish mystical history, and in so

doing achieves a unique place for Jewish mysticism in the history of mysticism

worldwide. Unfortunately, Scholem does not pay significant attention to the

important distinction between experience and interpretation.65

A generation later, Moshe Idel reviewed the mystical texts of Hasidic

Judaism and returned with a completely different conclusion than Scholems.

Revisiting many of the sources Scholem used, Idel determined that there are

many instances in Hasidic mysticism where extreme experiences can be

designated as unio mystica experiences.66It appears that neither Bubers nor



64 Idel,Hasidism, 5.65 Stace, Teachings of the Mystics, 222.


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Scholems account represent an un-interpreted Hasidism. Nonetheless, Buber,

Scholem, and Idel all agree that classical Hasidism arose not from doctrine, but

from direct, spontaneous religious experience.67

Hasidic mysticism encounters the world as the container of the sparks of

the divine and teaches that right relationship to all aspects of creation redeems the

world. Hasidic Judaism emphasizes the love of God rather than the traditional

emphasis on knowledge of scripture. It also places a greater value on the

attainment of mystical experience than any other form of Judaism except ecstatic

Kabbalah.

68

The admixture of an emphasis on both love and the value of mystical

experience resulted in the elevation of the practice ofdevekutcleaving to God.

With enthusiasm and intention, a Hasid could elevate her spirit towards God. It

is important to note, Idel asserts,

that it is no accident that Hasidism as a mystical phenomenon was

concerned with devekut, understood in some sources as unio

mystica, and that, theologically, pantheism was preferred by this

type of mystical thought. These two concepts had already been

integrated in the paradigm of ecstatic Kabbalah as two correlativeconcepts. It is possible to unite with God because He permeates all

of existence, and this continuous diffusion of the divine facilitates

the mystical encounter.69

One demonstration of this cleaving to God is in the act of prayer. Rabbi Moshe

Eliaqum Beriah, the son of the Maggid [Preacher] of the city of Koznitz, said that

by his dedication to God, his Rabbi Meshullan Zusha




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totally divested himself from this world when he ascended in order

to cleave to God, to such an extent that he was actually close to

annihilating his existence.70

The concept of annihilation of the individual that commonly appears in

Hasidism is not new to the Hasidic masters of the eighteenth century. Without

contest, scholars agree that the concept of annihilation and nothingness refers to

God in his pre-cosmic form. The mystical goal of attaining to nothingness means

a return to a state of union with God in the midst of the nothingness out of which

all creation arose. Nothingness is at once the most simple and most complex of

mystical thoughts. To achieve nothingness, according to Idel Man has to

obliterate his illusion of separate existence, which is the experience of his normal

state of consciousness, and recognize his total dependence upon the Nought.71

Allowing for varieties of cultural expressions, this has amazing resonance with

the concept of abolition of self found in mysticism around the world. Eckhart, for

example, states that only God can claim self-existence, and that it is obligatory

that every creature testify that it would not exist, except that God willed all

creation.72 Ruysbroeck similarly states that to experience God mystics must

immerse themselves in a wayless abyss of fathomless beatitude,

where the Trinity of the Divine Persons possess Their Nature in the

essential Unity. . . . There all light is turned to darkness; there the

three Persons give place to the Essential Unity, and abide withoutdistinction in fruition of essential blessedness.73




73 Stace, Teachings of the Mystics, 162.

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The many profound similarities between the nothingness of the Hasidic mystics,

the self-negation of Eckhart, and the dark wayless abyss of Ruysbroeck

demonstrate that they describe through differing vocabularies a potentially and

significantly similar experience. They all agree that the road to that essential unity

and undifferentiated experience of all things depends on the renunciation of the

self. As Underhill observes, the stripping off of the I, Me, the Mine, utter

renouncement, or self-naughting . . . is an imperative condition of the attainment

of the unitive life.74So for the Jewish mystic, as realized in Hasidic literature,

ultimate worship of God is not described as the unio mystica of other faiths, but

the cleaving to God and the attainment of nothing.

Hasidic nothingness cannot logically imply the cessation of the physical

self, but was nonetheless for centuries a goal of the Kabbalistic practice within

Judaism. The incorporation of the practice of attaining to nothingness in Hasidism

as a method for cleaving to God in order to return to the community with spiritual

power flowed directly from the teachings and example of the Baal Shem and the

Hasidic masters that followed him. By achieving personal nothingness a Hasid

was able to realize the divine spark within and thereafter act more fully as an

agent of God.

Let us ponder the significance of the word nothingness. It is not the

obliteration of personality, its reduction to nothingness, or the

awareness of its nullity; rather it is the dissipation of the ego-centered consciousness and the discovery of the divine within man.

In other words, by using the term nought, the Hasidic masters

refer, at least in some cases, to the disentanglement of the limited,accidental element from the core, the divine spark, which is able to


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become the locus of the infinite power. By discovering the divine

within man, the mystic draws toward him the divine source.75

The Hasidic masters were unique persons whose individuality found its

fulfillment, not its annihilation, in daily living. Rather than minimizing the

individuality of the person, the annihilation of the ego through the Hasidic

practice of nothingness unleashed an amazing array of unique individuals who

understood their abilities as Gods gift to the community, and fully shared this gift

without judgment. This annihilation of the ego was respected as a necessary step

in the achievement of the fulfillment of their individuality in submission to the

divine. In this self unification, as Buber refers to it, the person becomes a

gateway for the power of Gods spirit to be present in the community. The

experience of dissolution of the ego refers to an extinction of the individual

similar to the undifferentiated perception common in the unitive state. The

achievement of nothingness unifies the individual with the supernal nothingthe

emanative source of everything.

According to the Hasidic tradition, such self-annihilation makes manifest

the expansion of an individuals potential by the resolving of the ego, which

allows the mystic to connect more clearly with the divine and return to transmit

spiritual power to the community.76 TheZaddik77 served as the mystic in the

classical Hasidic community. The community acknowledged theZaddikas



77 literally a proven one, or perfected person. In Hasidism, for which the Baal

Shem was the best exemplar, theZaddikis the person in whose life and being the Torah

is embodied. For a complete definition see Buber,Legend of the Baal Shem, p. 221.

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spiritual leader, not because of education, though that was expected of every Jew,

but because of accomplishments in the spiritual realm, which brought benefit to

the community in the form of spiritual and material assistance.78 Idel describes the

mission of theZaddikas a reconnaissance expedition that through the

annihilation of the self and cleaving to God transforms the person and results in

the ability to return from the spiritual realm as a transmitting agent of divine

influx into the community.79 According to a statement of the Hasidic Rabbi Levi

Yizhaq of Beridchev, the mystics attainment of nothingness benefits the mystic

in invisible but significant ways.

There are those who serve God with their human intellect andothers whose gaze is fixed as if on Nought, and this is impossible

without divine help . . . He who is granted this supreme degree,

with divine help, to contemplate the Nought, his intellect is effaced

and he is like a dumb man . . . but when he returns from such acontemplation to the essence of intellect, he finds it full of influx.80

TheZaddiks ability to cleave to the nothing subsequently blesses and transforms

the world and his followers through his insightful advice and spiritual

understanding. Though the act of encountering the divine nothing may in that

moment appear passive, it engenders and supports an active spiritual community.

This divine nothingness is a creative void or creative nothingness that

engenders an even stronger communal activism than was possible before the

experience.81It appears that in Hasidism the solitary mystical experience was

expected to benefit the community. Because they believed that the spiritual plane


79 Idel,Hasidism, 121.80 Idel,Hasidism, 117.


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was the source of all blessing in the material world, aZaddikwho could cleave to

God on the spiritual plane would ensure the divine presence in the material world.

Mystical Roots of Hasidic Community

Despite the repudiation of unitive mysticism by Jewish theology in

general, theZaddikim continued their practice of attaining nothingness in

experiences of cleaving to God for the benefit of the Hasidic community.

According to Idel,

Hasidic masters would in most cases consider the mysticalexperience as a stage on the way toward another goal, namely the

return of the enriched mystic who becomes even more powerful

and active in and for the group for which he is responsible.82

In this way, mystical experience brought a fresh wave of the spirit of God into the

community, exactly what the Baal Shem Tov ultimately desired. This same goal

was shared by Buber when he re-shaped the tales of the Hasidim into a modern

form in the twentieth century. TheZaddikim83accepted the dissolution of ego, and

became aware of their personal insignificance and participation in the process of

becoming a tool of God. TheZaddikim traveled a demanding path to become

spiritually powerful teachers and examples for the community of the Hasidic

Jews. Hasidic Judaism centered around theseZaddikim, these Hasidic saints. To

those whose gaze is fixed on nothing, God grants the supreme experience of

service to God. Without their intellect at play during these mystical experiences,

Zaddikim returned from their contemplation of the divine to find their intellect


83 plural ofZaddik.

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filled by divine blessing.84 With these righteous men as their leaders, personality

took the place traditionally occupied by ritual and law, and community arose

around them. As Scholem describes this, The opinions particular to the exalted

individual are less important than his character, and mere learning, knowledge of

the Torah, no longer occupies the most important place.85The community grew

around these Hasidic saints because they were able to bring to the community the

presence of God and its benefits. Idel agrees:

By cornering the weight of the consequences of the mystical

experience on the welfare of the community or the group, the

Hasidic model narrowed the scope of its final achievement. . . .The birth of a child by a previously barren woman, recovery from

what seemed to be a fatal illness, and so forth are more concretethan the reestablishment of relations in the divine realms.86

TheZaddikim were successful in serving the needs of the community through the

power they achieved from their mystical experiences. Hasidic mysticism

grounded itself in the needs of the community and the belief in the power of God

to meet the needs of the Jewish people. Hasidic mysticism embraced every aspect

of daily life to embody the spark of the divine, and in so doing it transformed

daily life for Hasidic Jews.

Stace notes that Christian mysticism had a highly similar purpose.

Mystical union with God brings with it an intense and burning loveof God which must needs overflow into the world in the form of

love for our fellow-men; and that this must show itself in deeds of

charity, mercy, and self-sacrifice, and not merely in words.87




87 Stace, Teachings of the Mystics, 26

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Eckhart taught that In the unity of contemplation, God foreshadows the harvest

of action. In contemplation, you serve only yourself. In good works, you serve

many.88

In the same sermon Eckhart quotes St. Thomas Aquinas as saying:

The active life is better than the contemplative, for in it one pours

out the love he has received in contemplation. Yet it is all one; for

what we plant in the soil of contemplation we shall reap in the

harvest of action and thus the purpose of contemplation isachieved.89

The essence of the contemplative life in Christian mysticism intends much the

same benefit to the Christian community that the Hasidic mysticism provided for

the Jewish community. For Jew and Christian alike, the true benefit of mystical

experiences lies not in the intrinsic value of the experience itself in which the

individual feels at one with the world, but in the transformation of those mystics

to walk with their neighbor on whatever path is at hand; to live in the world

knowing the essential connectedness of each person and thing with the divine,

while in the same breath recognizing the cosmic insignificance of the ego.

Acknowledging that all of humanity shares in the spark of the divine admits that a

personal mystical experience does not improve the intrinsic value of that person.

Mystic experience makes one more aware of their connection to the nothing, and

impels participation in the difficulties of daily living with a transformed

perspective and increased power. It empowers living at a greater depth, not a life-

denying asceticism or monasticism, a point that Underhill expresses well:



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To go up alone into the mountain and come back as an ambassador

to the world, has ever been the method of humanitys best friends.

This systole-and-diastole motion of retreat as the preliminary to areturn remains the true ideal of Christian Mysticism in its highest

development.90

Mysticism, both Christian and Hasidic, stretches the mystic, not only

upward toward the divine, but also outward toward the community, demonstrating

an alternative way of living that honors each person as embodying a spark of the

divine. For without the constant reminder of the divine potential of every person,

the effects of self-importance run rampant on the planet. The aspects of

selfishnessgreed, arrogance, hierarchy, ego-domination and powerrun amok

on the planet and result in war, poverty, and evil. Mystics of every tradition can

be seen demonstrating and encouraging another way; a way of selflessness and

community. The path of mystical experience does not lend itself to every person.

Other experiences are equally necessary, but the encouragement and exhortation

of the mystics remains necessary as well. Mysticism, for all its various

descriptions and practices, shows a way for humanity to be more human with an

alternate awareness of our capacity and our role in the wholeness of the world.

Hasidism

Before the nineteenth century, Hasidism generated no significant interest

among Jewish scholars. Mysticism and emotionalism, which were the accepted

descriptions of Hasidism, held no attraction for Jewish scholars such as Heinrich

Graetz, Abraham Geiger, and Leopold Zunz.91The wave of Jewish nationalism in

the late nineteenth century sparked a romantic desire for Jews to reconnect with

90 Underhill, Mysticism, 172.91 Scholem, Martin Bubers Hasidism, 305.

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their roots. In 1906, Buber published the Tales of Rabbi Nachman and in 1908,

theLegend of the Baal Shem. These two books brought a new awareness to

western Jews of the enthusiasm of the Hasidic Jews of Galacia (eastern Poland

and western Ukraine) between 1750 and 1810. These books relate the legends

which describe the life of Israel ben Eliezer, honorifically known as the Baal

Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name) and his great-grandson Rabbi Nachman of

Bratzlav. The Baal Shem began as a wandering miracle worker and teacher of

ecstatic living, acknowledging the everyday gifts of God's spirit in the natural

world, until he settled in the growing village of Miedzyboz and was honored with

the title Doctor Baal Shem.92 He offered hope to a community of Jews continually

disempowered by political and economic hardship. The hope he offered sparked

an enthusiasm that spread throughout the Jewish world. In less than fifty years,

approximately half of all European Jews had modified their traditional rabbinic-

based lifestyle to incorporate his teachings. As the Baal Shem Tov never recorded

any of his teachings, the legends we have derive from his followers who recorded

them after his death in 1760. The legends and tales are about the spiritual journey

of Jews in the eighteenth century, and as such they are somewhat foreign to a

twenty-first century person. The original writings reflect a worldview that

preceded the arrival of the eighteenth century European Enlightenment. They

embraced a spiritual world where dubbyuks (demons) and angels were common.

All of their history was seen as the story of God interacting with them: a people

with a special relationship to the divine. Through their relationship to community

and creator, each Jewish person had a role in the redemption of the universe.

92 Rosman,Founder of Hasidism, 152.

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Prayer and ritual were normal daily practices and formed the center of their daily

lives.

Buber brought these stories to light in part because of his heritage

having met modern Hasidim during his childhood when visiting the village of

Sadagora with his grandfather, in the 1880s. Subsequently, he reported that when

he read the words of the Baal Shem in 1904 he was overpowered in an instant

with the eternal message of religious experience.

I experienced the Hasidic soul. The primally Jewish opened to

me mans being created in the image of God I grasped as deed,

as becoming, as task. At the same time I became aware of thesummons to proclaim it to the world.93

This calling became the impetus for Buber's long term effort to make the spiritual-

ethical teachings of Hasidism accessible to the modern reader.

Buber saw in the Hasidic teachings a clear expression of the core of

religious experience. InHasidism and Modern Man Buber identifies four primary

themes of the Hasidic community: ecstasy, service, intention, and humility.94

Ecstasy describes the heartbeat of awe that suffuses the soul wrapped in the divine

a lover so fully committed that nothing else exists. Ecstasy is "above nature

and above time and above thought."95 Such is a description of a Hasid in the

intensity of his devotion. Complementary to such ecstasy, every Hasid also lives

in community to serve God in time and space. The highest service is not related to

93 Friedman,Encounter on the Narrow Ridge, 39.

94 Buber,Hasidism and Modern Man, 74-122.

95 Buber,Hasidism and Modern Man, 77.

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the act done, but the quality of heart from which any act arises. Therefore, service

to community reveals itself as the other face of ecstasy before God.

The intention to elevate every profane act into the realm of the holy, Buber

writes, "is the mystery of a soul directed to a goal: redemption."96 The ultimate

intention of every Hasidic Jew is the redemption of the world, by which they

mean the return of the Jewish people and the Shekinah (the approachable yet

protective nature of God which eternally lives with the Jewish people) from their

present exile into the full presence of God. Every person in the community has a

role in this redemptive process. Each community member is valued for bringing

into being a unique and valued experience of God. The more purely each

community member acknowledges his or her unique relationship with God, the

more clearly they see their value to the community. "To feel the universal

generation as a sea and oneself as a wave, that is the mystery of humility."97 The

value of self-as-individual and self-as-community-member develops concurrently

as each individual finds his or her meaning and relationship with God. Buber

brought these teachings of Hasidism forward because he saw in them the

possibility of overcoming the separation between the sacred and the profane.

Buber believed Western society needed to hear this message.98

96 Buber,Hasidism and Modern Man, 98-99.97 Buber,Hasidism and Modern Man, 112-113.

98 Buber,Hasidism and Modern Man, 38.

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Das Zwichenmenschliche (the Between)

While Bubers personal writings focused on the ethical and spiritual, his

profession as an editor kept him involved on a much broader spectrum of issues.

His activities as editor ofDer Jude, an intellectual magazine focusing on Jewish

issues, brought him the invitation to edit a collection of monographs in 1906. In

the editors introduction to the first of the series titledDie Gesellschaft(The

Society) Bubers first written thoughts on the concept of the between find

expression.99At this time his ideas were predominantly based on the sociological

training of his university years and reveal little of the insight that was to become

foundational to his philosophy of dialogue.

Buber intended the collection of monographs to address the problem of the

interhuman in its forms, structures, and actions. The formssuper and sub-

ordination, groupings, class organizations, and all types of economic and cultural

associationshave their ultimate significance in their ability to bring individuals

into social relations. The structuresvalues, methods of production, social

aspects of culture, etc.aggregate the psychic energy of the society and

enculturate the individual. The actionseconomic, social, and cultural behaviors

recorded in historyexpress the psychic energy in rhythm, tempo, and intensity.

None of these facets of the interhuman depart far from the social-psychological

99translated by Mendes-Flohr and published as the Appendix inFrom Mysticism

to Dialogue, 127-130.Several source documents significant to illustrate the ideas ofBubers early years have not been published, either in German or English. Paul Mendes-

Flohr and Grete Schaeder have excavated the Martin Buber archives to make parts of

Bubers dissertation, his lecture to the New Community in 1901, and his 1906 editors

preface to Georg SimmelsDie Gesellschaft(The Society) accessible. I rely upon thetranslations presented by the authors for these documents.

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experience. These dialogues remain centered on the individual discovery of

personal wholeness.Danielconcludes without an understanding of the other. In

Danielthe journey of life is more a journey of self than of relationship. The

character Daniel says True unity cannot be found, it can only be created. He who

creates it realizes the unity of the world in the unity of his soul.102Danielends

with an individual in tension with the world as a test of being, but not authentic

relationship.

In his reflections on significant events in his life, Buber describes one

morning of the summer of 1914 as his conversion experience. After a particular

conversation with a young soldier he realized that, though he was present to the

conversation, he neglected to truly connect with the soldier because he had spent

the previous hours in religious enthusiasm and was not fully present to the man

who had come to see him before he was shipped out to the wars front line. When

Buber learned of the soldiers death shortly thereafter, the significance of this

mis-meeting penetrated him. Buber described that event as the primary catalyst

which caused him to give up the religious as transcendent. From that moment

forward religion became not the transcendent, but the immanent of daily life

everything, simply all that is lived in its possibility of dialogue.103

This disillusion with mysticism caused a fundamental reformulation of

Bubers understanding of the function of religion. Buber admits he began work as

early as 1916 on a book concerning this theme; manuscript references can be

102 Buber,Daniel, 141.

103 Buber, Autobiographic Fragments, 26.

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found as early as 1918. In 1922 at theFreies Jdisches Lehrhaus he presented a

lecture series entitledReligion As Presence, immediately preceding the

publication of his bookI and Thou, and addressing significantly the same content,

but organized differently. The lectures began from a more metaphysical

perspective reminiscent of mystical rungs of ascension.104 The lectures indicate

that Bubers transition from his earlier mystical experience was gradual. He

responds to the idea of religion as sociological function which has transferred God

to the It-world. As Rivka Horowitz notes, in hisReligion as Presence lectures,

Buber abandons his earlier advocacy of experiencing God and denounces the

pursuit of moments of psychological or mystical ecstasy.105 Buber states that

Truth is not in mystical union, for one can never achieve complete union, but in

encounter.106 In this statement we find a clear, yet not complete, indication of

Bubers transition from mysticism to dialogue.

In 1923 Buber rewrote the lecture series to become the seminal work

which began his writings on a philosophy of dialogue. His bookI and Thou

established the departure from his Hasidic writings in that it based itself not in a

mystical religious experience but in an existential understanding of the present.

The book begins in minimalist and poetic statements about the individual and the

two possible relationships: "I-Thou" and I-It. Neither I-Thou nor I-It represent

compound ideas, but primary orientations. Constantly basing his insights from his

experience in daily living, Buber explores the depth of personal relationship to

104 Horowitz,Buber's Way to "I and Thou, 10.

105 Horowitz,Buber's Way to "I and Thou."12.

106 Horowitz,Buber's Way to "I and Thou,"12.

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the two men and resulted in a metamorphosis of Bubers ideas in the direction of

his philosophy of dialogue. Landauers translation of Meister Eckhart made an

impact on Buber, and Bubers first Hasidic publications, years later, resembled

Landauers

Hidden Spark of Hasidism

Documents

Transcript of Hidden Spark of Hasidism