Huss, Contemporary Kabbalah and Its Challange

8/6/2019 Huss, Contemporary Kabbalah and Its Challange

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Kabbalah andContemporary Spiritual

Revival

edited by

Boaz Huss

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press


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The Goldstein-Goren Library of Jewish Thought

Publication No. 14

ISBN 978-965-536-043-1

All Rights Reserved

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press

Beer-Sheva 2011

Printed in Israel


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Contents

Contributors 7

Preface 13

From Neo-Hasidism to Outreach Yeshivot: The Origins

of the Movements of Renewal and Return to Tradition

Yaakov Ariel 17

Performing Kabbalah in the Jewish Renewal Movement

Chava Weissler 39

Self, Identity and Healing in the Ritual of Jewish Spiritual

Renewal in Israel

Rachel Werczberger 75

The Contemporary Renaissance of Braslov Hasidism:

Ritual, Tiqqun and Messianism

Zvi Mark 101

Towards the Study of the Spiritual-Mystical Renaissance

in the Contemporary Ashkenaziaredi World in Israel

Jonathan Garb 117

Building a Sanctuary of the Heart: The Kabbalistic-Pietistic

Teachings of Itamar Schwartz

Elliot R. Wolfson 141

The Boundaries of the Kabbalah: R. Yaakov Moshe Hillel

and the Kabbalah in Jerusalem

Jonatan Meir 163

Kabbalah for the Gentiles: Diverse Souls and Universalism

in Contemporary Kabbalah

Jody Myers 181

Toward a Social Psychology of Spirituality

Philip Wexler 213Yoga and Kabbalah as World Religions? A Comparative

Perspective on Globalization of Religious Resources

Vronique Altglas 233


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Kabbalah in GnosisMagazine (1985-1999)

Wouter J. Hanegraaff 251

Paganism: Negotiating between Esotericism and Animism

under the Influence of Kabbalah

Graham Harvey 267

Radical Religious Zionism from the Collective to the

Individual

Shlomo Fischer 285

Precursors to Postmodern Spirituality in Israeli Cultural Ethos

Tamar Katriel 311

Between Universalism and Relativism: The Acquiring ofa Continuously Liberating Self by Buddha-Dhamma Israeli

Practitioners

Joseph Loss 329

Contemporary Kabbalah and its Challenge to the Academic

Study of Jewish Mysticism

Boaz Huss 357


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Boaz Huss

Kabbalah and Hasidism have attracted much more scholarly notice.

Several study and research groups, as well as conferences and sessionswithin the framework of academic meetings were dedicated to

contemporary kabbalisitic revival,2

and many studies were written about

358

19 (1992): 29-44. Mention should be made also of Herbert Wieners9 1/2 Mystics: The Kabbalah Today (New York, 1969), the first survey ofKabbalah in the second half of the 20th century, which was written from ajournalistic, rather than an academic perspective.

2 During1998-2000, a research Group on contemporary Kabbalah headed by AviElqayam and Boaz Huss convened in The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. Thegroups organized a conference on Kabbalah, Mysticism and Israeli Society in

June 2000. Sessions dedicated to contemporary forms of Kabbalah, JewishMysticism and Jewish Spirituality have been held in most of the AJS annualconferences since 2002, as well as in the 14th and 15th World Congresses ofJewish studies, held in Jerusalem in 2005 and 2009, and during the 2008 AARannual meeting. A conference entitled Reaching the Infinite: The LubavitcherRebbe-Life, Teaching and Impact was held at NYU in November 2005, aconference on Kabbalah and Modernity was held at Amsterdam University inJuly 2007, and a conference on Kabbalah and Contemporary Spiritual Revivalwas held at Ben-Gurion University on May 2008. A research group on TheSociology of Contemporary Jewish Mysticism in Comparative Perspective,headed by Yoni Garb and Philip Wexler convened at the Institute of AdvancedStudies in Jerusalem in 2008/2009. The group held an international conferenceon Contemporary Jewish Mysticism: Social and Comparative Perspectives inJuly 2009.

3 A monograph on 20

th

century Kabbalah, Yoni Garbs The Chosen Will BecomeHerds: Studies in Twentieth Century Kabbalah (New Haven, 2009) was publishedfirst in Hebrew, in 2005. General surveys and discussions of contemporaryKabbalah are found in: Boaz Huss, The New Age of Kabbalah: ContemporaryKabbalah, New Age, and Postmodern Spirituality,Modern Jewish Studies 6(2007): 107125; idem, Contemporary Forms of Kabbalah in the Late 20th andEarly 21st Centuries, The Cambridge Companion to Kabbalah, ed. Elliot R.Wolfson (forthcoming); Jody Myers, Kabbalah in the Modern Era, CambridgeHistory of Judaism, Volume VIII: The Modern Period, c. 1815 c. 2000, eds.Mitchell B. Hart and Tony Michels (forthcoming); idem Kabbalah at the Turnof the Twenty-First Century,Jewish Mysticism: New Insights and Scholarship,ed. Frederick E. Greenspahn (forthcoming). For a survey of printing of kabbalisticliterature in the 20th century, see Zeev Gries, The Printing of Kabbalistic Literaturein the Twentieth Century, Kabbalah 18 (2008): 113-132. Recent collectivevolumes on modern and contemporary forms of Kabbalah are:Kabbalah and

Modernity: Interpretations, Transformations, Adaptations, eds. Boaz Huss, MarcoPasi, and Kocku von Stuckrad (Leiden and Boston, 2010), and the presentvolume.Studies of contemporary Kabbalah are also included inPhilip Wexlerand Yoni Garbs forthcoming volume, Contemporary Mysticism: Social andComparative Perspectives. For studies of specific contemporary Kabbalistic andHasidic movements, see the following notes.

the new forms of Kabbalah and Hasidism.3

From the various types of


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Contemporary Kabbalah

contemporary kabbalistic and hasidic revival, it is mostly the Chabad

359

4 Monographs on the last Lubavitcher Rebbe and contemporary Chabad are: AvrumM. Ehrlich, Leadership in the aBad Movement: A Critical Evaluation ofaBadLeadership, History and Succession (Northvale and Jerusalem, 2000); YitzhakKraus, The Seventh: Messianism in the Last Generation ofabad (Hebrew;Tel-Aviv, 2007); Elliot Wolfson, Open Secret, Postmessianic Messianism andthe Mystical Revision of Menaem Mendel Schneerson (New York, 2009); SamuelC. Heilman and Menahem M. Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and After Life of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Princeton, 2010). See also David Bergers polemical work, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of OrthodoxIndifference, (London, 2008). An edited volume,Reaching for the Infinite: The Lubavitcher Rebbe Life, Teachings, and Impact, eds. Naftali Loewenthal,Lawrence H. Schiffman and Elliot R. Wolfson, is forthcoming. Recent articles

on contemporary Chabad include: Maya Balakirsky Katz, On the Master-DiscipleRelationship in Hasidic Visual Culture: The Life and Afterlife of RabbinicalPortraits in Chabad,Image 1 (2007): 55-79; idem, Trademarks of Faith: Chabadand Chanukah in America,Modern Judaism29 (2009): 239-267; Yoram Bilu,With Us More Than Ever, Making the late Rabbi Present in Messianic Chabad,Leadership and Authority in the Ultraorthodox Community: New Perspectives,eds. Kimi Caplan and Nurit Stadler (Hebrew; Tel Aviv, 2009), 186-209; MichalKravel and Yoram Bilu, The Work of the Present: Constructing MessianicTemporality in the Wake of Failed Prophecy among Chabad Hasidim,AmericanEthnologist35 (2008): 1-17; Michal Kravel-Tovi, To See the Invisible Messiah:Messianic Socialization in the Wake of a Failed Prophecy in abad,Religion39 (2009), 248-260; Tomer Persico, Chabads Lost Messiah,Azure 38 (2009):82-127.

5 Studies of Jewish Renewal and related groups include: Yaakov Ariel, Hasidism

in the Age of Aquarius: The House of Love and Prayer in San Francisco,19671977,Religion and American Culture 13 (2003): 139165; idem, CanAdam and Eve Reconcile: Gender and Sexuality in a New Jewish ReligiousMovement, Nova Religion 9.4 (2006): 53-78; Marie Josee-Posen, Beyond New Age: Jewish Renewals Reconstruction of Theological Meaning in theTeaching of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi,New Age Judaism, eds. CeliaRosenberg and Anne Vallely (London, 2008), 73-94; Shaul Magid, RainbowHasidism in America The Maturation of Jewish Renewal, The Reconstructionist68 (2004): 34-60; idem, The Jewish Renewal Movement, Encyclopedia ofReligion, 2nd ed., (Farmington Hills, 2005), vol. 7, 48684874; idem, JewishRenewal A New American Religion? Tikkun Magazine (January/February,2006); idem, Jewish Renewal, American Spiritualism, and PostmonotheisticTheology, Tikkun Magazine (May/June, 2006); idem, The Necessary Heresyof Translation: Reflections on the Hebrew Writings of Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Spectrum: A Journal of Renewal Spirituality 3 (2007); David Roper,

The Turbulent Marriage of Ethnicity and Spirituality: Rabbi Theodore Falcon,Makom Ohr Shalom and Jewish Mysticism in the Western United States,19691993,Journal of Contemporary Religion 18 (2003): 169-184; Celia E.Rothberg, Hebrew Healing: Jewish Authenticity and Religious Healing inCanada,Journal of Contemporary Religion 21 (2006), 163-182; idem, JewishYoga: Experiencing Flexible, Sacred, and Jewish Bodies, Nova Religio 10

movement4

and the Jewish Renewal5

which attained scholarly attention.


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Several studies have been dedicated to contemporary saint veneration

practices,6

Philip Berg and the Kabbalah Center,7

Michael Laitman

360

(2006): 57-74; Joanna Steinhardt, American Neo-Hasids in the Land of Israel,Nova Religio 13 (2010): 22-42; Chava Weissler, Meanings of Shekhinah in theJewish Renewal Movement,Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Womens Studies& Gender Issues 10 (2006): 53-83; idem, Art is spirituality!: Practice, Play,and Experiential Learning in the Jewish Renewal Movement,Material Religion3.3 (2007): 354-379; idem, Women of Vision in the Jewish Renewal Movement:The Eshet Hazon [Woman of Vision] Ceremony, New Age Judaism, eds.Celia E. Rothenberg and Anne Vallely (London, 2008), 52-72. See also YakkovAriel, From Neo Hasidism to Outreach Yeshivot: The Origins of the Movementsof Renewal and Return to Tradition, and Chava Weissler, Performing Kabbalah

in the Jewish Renewal Movement, in the present volume.6 Yoram Bilu, The Saints Impresarios: Dreamers, Healers and Holy Men in

Israels Urban Periphery, (Hebrew; Haifa, 2005).

7 On the Kabbalah Center see: Jody Myers,Kabbalah and the Spiritual Quest:The Kabbalah Centre in America (Westport, Connecticut, 2007); idem, TheKabbalah Centre and Contemporary Spirituality, Religion Compass 2 (2008):409-420; idem, Marriage and Sexual Behavior in the Teachings of the KabbalahCenter, Kabbalah and Modernity: Interpretations, Transformations,Adaptations, eds. Boaz Huss, Marco Pasi, and Kocku von Stuckrad (Leiden andBoston, 2010), 259-282; Boaz Huss, All You Need Is LAV: Madonna andPostmodern Kabbalah, The Jewish Quarterly Review 95 (2005): 611-624; JonatanMeir, The Revealed and the Revealed within the Concealed: On the Oppositionto the Followers of Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag and the Dissemination of EsotericLiterature (Hebrew),Kabbalah 16 (2007): 170-190. See also Vronique Altglas,Yoga and Kabbalah as World Religions? A Comparative Perspective on

Globalization of Religious Resources, in the present volume; idem, TheChallenges of Universalising Religions: The Kabbalah Centre in France andBritain,Nova Religio (forthcoming); andBoaz Huss, Kabbalah and the Politicsof In-Authenticity: Controversies over the Kabbalah Center,Religion and IdentityPolitics, eds. Tim Jansen and Olav Hammer (forthcoming).

8 Meir, The Revealed and the Revealed within the Concealed, 190-216; ShaiBen Tal, Bnei Baruch The Story of a New Religious Movement (Hebrew),Akdamot25 (2010); 147-168. See also Jody Myers, Kabbalah for the Gentiles:Diverse Souls and Universalism in Contemporary Kabbalah, in the presentvolume.

9 See Shlomo Fisher, The Ethical Crisis of Spirituality: on the Thought of RabbiIsaac Ginsburgh (Hebrew), Eretz A eret 26 (2005): 53-57; idem, Nature,Authenticity and Violence in Radical Religious Zionist Thought, Generations, Locations, Identities: Contemporary Perspectives on Society and Culture in

Israel, Essays in Honor of Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, eds. Hannah Herzog, TalKochavi and Shimshon Zelniker (Hebrew; Tel Aviv, 2007); Garb, The ChosenWill Become Herds, 48-50; Motti Inbari,Jewish Fundamentalism and the TempleMount: Who Will Build the Third Temple? (Albany, 2009), 131-160; Don Seeman,Violence, Ethics and Divine Honour in Modern Jewish Thought, Journal ofthe American Academy of Religion 73 (2005): 1017-1028. Ginsburgh is discussed

and Bnei Baruch Group,8

Isaac Ginsburgh,9

contemporary Braslav


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Hasidism,10

and contemporary Kabbalah in the Sephardic and Ultra-

Orthodox communities.11

Other types of contemporary Kabbalah andHasidism have been gone into only briefly, or not at all.

12

Scholars from a variety of disciplines, anthropologists, sociologists,

historians and researchers of New Religious Movements occupy

themselves with contemporary Kabbalah. Interestingly, not a great

number of scholars of Jewish mysticism engage in the study of

contemporary Kabbalah and Hasidism. Furthermore, contemporary

Kabbalah is usually not included in thematic and general studies of

Kabbalah, and some scholars of Jewish mysticism disparage

contemporary forms of Kabbalah and Hasidism and deny their

authenticity and relevance to the inquiry into earlier, true expressions

of Jewish mysticism.13

The fact that the majority of work done on contemporary Kabbalah

and Hasidism is not conducted within the framework of the academic

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also by Myers, Kabbalah for the Gentiles, and by Shlomo Fischer, RadicalReligious Zionism from the Collective to the Individual, in the present volume.

10 See Piekarz, adisut Braslav, 199-218; and Zvi Mark, The ContemporaryRenaissance of Braslov Hasidism: Ritual, Tikkun and Messianism, in the presentvolume.

11 See: Jonathan Garb, Mystical and Spiritual Discourse in the Contemporary

Ashkenazi aredi Worlds,Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 9 (2010): 17-36;Pinchas Giller, Leadership and Charisma among Mizra i Modern Kabbalists inthe footsteps of Sharabi Contemporary Kabbalistic Prayer, The Journal forthe Study of Sephardic & Mizra i Jewry (2007): 21-41. See also Jonathan Garb,Towards the Study of the Spiritual-Mystical Renaissance in the ContemporaryAshkenazy aredi World in Israel; Elliot Wolfson, Building a Sanctuary ofthe Heart: The Kabbalistic-Pietistic Teachings of Itamar Schwartz; and JonatanMeir, The Boundaries of the Kabbalah: R. Yaakov Moshe Hillel and the Kabbalahin Jerusalem, in the present volume.

12 Israel Yakov Ifargan, Ha-Rentgen is discussed by Liora Sarfati, ImportedRituals, addiq Veneration in Israel, UCLA Center for Modern andContemporary Studies (2004). Ariel Bar Zadok is discussed in Myers, Kabbalahfor the Gentiles, in the present volume. David Basri, Bnayahu Shmueli, WarrenKenton and many other contemporary Kabbalistis have not been studied yet.

13 See Matt Goldish, Kabbalah, Academia, and Authenticity, Tikkun Magazine(September/October 2005): 63-67; Boaz Huss, Authorized Guardians: ThePolemics of Academic Scholars of Jewish Mysticism against KabbalahPractitioners,Polemical Encounters: Esoteric Discourse and its Others, eds.Olav Hammer and Kocku von Stuckrad (Leiden, 2007), 104-126; idem, Kabbalahand the Politics of In-Authenticity.

discipline of Jewish mysticism, and that most scholars of Jewish


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mysticism are not interested in the contemporary manifestations of

Kabbalah and Hasidism, seems significant to me. I do not mean tocriticize the actuality that most students of contemporary Kabbalah

and Hasidism come from other disciplines on the contrary, I believe

that the study of contemporary Kabbalah from various disciplinary

perspectives enhances its understanding, and should be encouraged

also in other areas of Kabbalah and Hasidism. Yet, the reluctance of

scholars of Jewish mysticism to study contemporary Kabbalah and

integrate it into their vision of Jewish mysticism requires an explanation.

In the following, I will analyze the reasons for the marginality of

contemporary Kabbalah and Hasidism in the academic research of

Jewish mysticism; consequently I will suggest that the revival of

Kabbalah and Hasidism both defy and challenge some of the

methodological assumptions, fundamental categories and theological

presuppositions of the academic perusal of Jewish mysticism. I will

assert that because of these challenges, the study of contemporary

Kabbalah and Hasidism is not only an opportunity to enlarge our

understanding of the historical developments of Kabbalah and Hasidism,

but also offers an opening for a critical examination of the discursive

framework which regulates the academic study of Jewish mysticism.

The Academic Study of Jewish Mysticism and its

Attitude to Contemporary Kabbalah

Western academic research of Kabbalah and Hasidism, which began

in the 19th

century, was established as an academic discipline by the

scholarly enterprise of Gershom Scholem and his disciples. Following

earlier scholars, Scholem defined Kabbalah and Hasidism as Jewish

mysticism and determined the major categories and methodologies

for its study and the main suppositions concerning its essence, historical

development, and cultural impact. Scholems interest in Jewish

mysticism was first and foremost historical; yet, he believed in its

metaphysical significance. Paradoxically, he maintained that the only

way to reach the metaphysical import of Kabbalah was through

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14 Andreas B. Kilcher, Philology as Kabbalah, Kabbalah and Modernity:Interpretations, Transformations, Adaptations, eds. Boaz Huss, Marco Pasi, andKocku von Stuckrad (Leiden and Boston, 2010), 20-26.

philological historical research.14


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Scholem identified the beginning of Jewish mysticism in the

Heikhalot literature, its later developments in medieval and early modernKabbalah, and its last stage in 18th century East European Hasidism.

According to Scholems historiography, which was embedded in his

Zionist ideology, the later stages of Jewish mysticism led, dialectically,

to modern Judaism and Zionism. Scholem, who regarded Jewish

mysticism as a manifestation of the vital force of the Jewish nation in

the Diaspora, believed that the creative element of Jewish mysticism

was invested in his times in the Zionist secular endeavor of building a

modern Jewish nation;15

he asserted that Jewish mysticism, in its

traditional forms, lost its historical significance:

At the end of a long process of development in which Kabbalism,paradoxical though it may sound, has influenced the course of

Jewish history, it has become again what it was in the beginning:

the esoteric wisdom of small groups of men out of touch with

life and without any influence on it.16

In accordance with this perception, Scholem ignored in his studies

contemporaneous forms of Kabbalah, and disparaged Neo-Romantic

and Western esoteric interests in Kabbalah.17

He did not deny the

possibility of a continuation of Jewish mysticism, but declared that

such continuation would not be in the form of traditional Kabbalah,

but rather in the framework of secular Zionism and the modern academic

study of Kabbalah.

Since the 1980s, major revisions have taken place in the academic

research of Jewish mysticism. Moshe Idel, Yehuda Liebes, Elliot

Woflson and other scholars offered new directions and perspectives in

Kabbalah studies, and modified many of Scholem`s methodological

and theoretical suppositions; a great number of his theories concerning

363

15 Gershom Scholem, On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in our Time andOther Essays (Philadelphia and Jerusalem, 1997), 17.

16 Gershom Scholem,Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1971), 34.

17 See Boaz Huss, Ask No Questions: Gershom Scholem and the Study ofContemporary Jewish Mysticism,Modern Judaism 25 (2005): 141-58; idem,Authorized Guardians.

18 For reviews of the new perspectives and directions of Kabbalah scholarship see:

the history and the significance of Kabbalah have been challenged.18


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Boaz Huss

One of the central issues criticized by this next generation of Kabbalah

scholars was the question of the origins of Jewish mysticism. Idel,Liebes and others rejected Scholems theory of the Gnostic origins of

Kabbalah, and regarded it as a continuation of earlier Jewish mythical,

theosophical and theurgical themes, which can be traced back to talmudic

and biblical literature. These scholars of Jewish mysticism, especially

Moshe Idel, criticized the exclusiveness of Scholems historical-

philological method and suggested using different methodologies, in

particular comparative and phenomenological, in the study of Jewish

mysticism.

Notwithstanding the new perspectives and directions of study, these

scholars still held on to some of the major suppositions of Kabbalah

studies, specifically, the identification of Kabbalah and Hasidism as

Jewish mysticism. While many of the new scholars rejected Scholems

theories concerning the origins of Jewish mysticism, and extended the

scope of Jewish mysticism and Jewish myth to talmudic and biblical

times, Scholems perception of Hasidism as the last significant stage

of Jewish mysticism has remained, until recently, unchallenged.19

Although Moshe Idel suggested in his 1988Kabbalah: New Perspectives

that contact with living kabbalists can enrich the academic vision of

what Kabbalah is,20

the study of contemporary Kabbalah was not part

of the revision of Kabbalah studies in the late 1980s and 1990s; only

in recent years has the scholarship of Jewish Mysticism turned itsattention to this area. As stated above, in the field of Jewish mysticism

the study of contemporary forms of Kabbalah is still marginal and

some scholars reject and disparage the contemporary revival of Kabbalah

364

Hava Tirosh-Rothschild, Continuity and Revision in the Study of Kabbalah,AJS Review 16 (1991): 161-192; Amos Funkenstein, Annals of Israel amongthe Thorns (Hebrew),ion 60 (1995): 342-344; Boaz Huss, The New Age ofKabbalah Research: Book Review of Ron Margolin, The Human Temple; MelilaHellner-Eshed, A River Flows from Eden; Jonathan Garb, Manifestations ofPower in Jewish Mysticism (Hebrew), Theory and Criticism 27 (2005): 246-253.

19 Moshe Idel asserted: The last major development in Jewish Mysticism is theHasidic movement. See Moshe Idel, Kabbalah Research: FromMonochromatism to Polymorphism, Studia Judaica 8 (1999): 36. See also hisAbsorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation(New Haven, 2002), 12.

20 Moshe Idel,Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven and London, 1988), 25.

and Hasidism.


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The Challenges of Contemporary Kabbalah to the

Academic Study of Jewish MysticismMedieval and early modern Kabbalah and Hasidism can be explored

mostly through their literary output. Gershom Scholem and his followers,

whose studies were based on meticulous textual analysis, regarded

philology as the exclusive method for Kabbalah research. Moshe Idel,

who criticized Scholem and his disciples textology,21

called the

attention to practical and experiential forms of Kabbalah, and suggested

the use of other methods, first and foremost, phenomenology.22

Notwithstanding Idels criticism of textology, contemporary

Kabbalah scholars analyses of the experiential and practical aspects

of Kabbalah are still based almost exclusively on the description of

such experiences and practices in kabbalistic speculative texts. The

historical-philological exploration of kabbalistic literature is still central

in the study of Jewish mysticism; in the main it is supplemented by

methods and theories taken from phenomenological and comparative

studies of religion. However, methods and theories common in the

social sciences are employed much less by scholars of Jewish mysticism,

some of whom regard them quite disparagingly.23

Most scholars of

Jewish mysticism accept that Kabbalah and Hasidism operated in social,

economic and political contexts. Yet, they regard Jewish mysticism as

a religious phenomenon, whose essential features cannot be reduced to

political and social factors. Hence, the tools used for social science are

considered inept of explaining the religious core of Jewish mysticism.

As Jonathan Garb stated in the conclusion of his study of the

contemporary revival of Jewish mysticism: Although I have centered

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21 Ibid, 23.

22 Ibid, 22-25, 27-29.

23 Yehuda Liebes declared: One should aspire for maximal understanding and

minimal external intervention; to avoid distanced patronizing as well as parasiticmanipulations. I do not appreciate very much the Sociological-Anthropological-Psychological research, which tends to deteriorate to tendentious publicistics.See Yehuda Liebes, Thoughts on the Religious Significance of KabbalahScholarship, The Path of the Spirit: Eliezer Schweid Jubilee Volume, ed.Yehoyada Amir (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 2005), vol. 1, 202.

in most of this article on an explanation of a sociological nature, I do


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Boaz Huss

not accept, in principal, a reduction of spiritual possibilities to a social

level.24

Unlike in the case of earlier forms of Kabbalah, the study of present

day Kabbalah and Hasidism allows observation of actual kabbalistic

practices which calls for the application of methodologies of the social

sciences. As contemporary Kabbalah produces not only textual artifacts,

but also other types of cultural productions amulets, jewelry, pop

songs, video clips, etc. its study requires methodologies used in

media and cultural studies. Hence, exploring contemporary Kabbalah

challenges the research practices of scholars of Jewish mysticism.

Indeed, in recent years we find that not only anthropologists and

sociologists, but scholars of Jewish mysticism as well, employ

ethnographical methods and cultural studies theories in their inquiry

into contemporary Kabbalah.25

These methods and theories can also be

utilized for the study of earlier forms of Kabbalah and Hasidism, and

may change the negative stance of scholars of Jewish mysticism towards

social science and cultural studies and augment the methodological

and theoretical tools applied in the study of Kabbalah and Hasidism.

Furthermore, the possibility to observe contemporary kabbalistic

movements and the use of social and cultural studies methods in their

study, accentuates the social, economic and political aspects of

kabbalistic practices and cultural productions and challenges the

possibility to distinguish between the religious or spiritual core ofKabbalah and its external social and political manifestations.

Contemporary Kabbalah challenges not only the methodological

research practices of scholars of Kabbalah and Hasidism, it calls into

question the historiographical framework and some of the fundamental

research categories that regulate the academic research of Jewish

Mysticism. First and foremost, the emergence of contemporary Kabbalah

and Hasidism and their growing cultural and social power defies the

366

24 Jonathan Garb, The Understandable Revival of Mysticism Today: Innovationand Conservatism in the Thought of Joseph Achituv,Jewish Culture in the Eyeof the Storm: Festschrift in Honor of Joseph Achituv, eds. A. Sagi and Z. Zohar(Hebrew; Ein Zurim, 2002), 199.

25 See: Huss, All You Need is Lav; Garb Towards the Study of the Spiritual-Mystical Renaissance.

presupposition that Hasidism was the last significant stage of Jewish


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mysticism, and that Kabbalah has lost its influence on modern culture.

At the same time the conspicuous revival of contemporary Kabbalahturns attention to less prominent developments in later Kabbalah and

Hasidism from which some of the current kabbalistic movement

developed (such as Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag and the kabbalisticyeshivot

in Jerusalem in the early 20th century), which were ignored by Scholem

and most of his followers. Furthermore, seeing that the canonical opus

studied by contemporary kabbalists differs from the kabbalistic canon

as perceived in modern scholarship,26

the study of contemporary

Kabbalah may modify scholars perception of that canon, and contribute

to the study of early modern forms of Kabbalah (such as Rabbi Moshe

ayyim Luzatto, The Vilna Gaon, and Rabbi Shalom Sharabi), which

are central for contemporary Kabbalah, but were neglected in academic

scholarship.

The new shape contemporary Kabbalah has taken challenges the

essentialist perception of Kabbalah, as an organic phenomenon, which

has a number of defining common denominators in all of its

manifestations. Although there exists no accepted definition of

Kabbalah, and disagreements subsist concerning its fundamental

characteristics, certain assumptions, concerning the nature of Kabbalah

and Hasidism are accepted by most researchers of Jewish mysticism.

Thus, almost all scholars of Kabbalah and Hasidism agree that these

cultural formations are Jewish forms of mysticism.27

Notwithstandingthe common clich that mysticism is difficult, if not impossible, to

define, almost all scholars go along with the common perception of

mysticism as an unusual experience of contact with a divine, or

transcendent reality. Furthermore, most of them follow Scholems

characterization of Kabbalah (or at least, some of its major currents)

367

26 Jonathan Garb, The Modernization of Kabbalah: A Case Study,Modern Judaism30 (2010): 3-4.

27 For reservations concerning the definition of Kabbalah as Jewish Mysticism,see Joseph Dan, The Heart and the Fountain (Oxford, 2002), 7-9; YehudaLiebes, Spirituality and Spirit (Hebrew), Makor Rishon 20/10/06: 6; BoazHuss, The Mystification of the Kabbalah and the Modern Construction ofJewish Mysticism, BGU Review(Summer, 2008), http://web.bgu.ac.il/Eng/Centers/review/summer2008/Mysticism.htm.

as theosophy, which he defined as a mystical doctrine, or school of


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Boaz Huss

thought, which purports to perceive and to describe the mysterious

workings of the Divinity, perhaps also believing it possible to becomeabsorbed in its contemplation.28 With Moshe Idel, who qualified

Scholems perceptions regarding the nature of Kabbalah, many today

agree that the two major trends of Jewish Kabbalah are the theosophical-

theurgical and the ecstatic.29

The presently accepted view in Kabbalah

scholarship is that mystical speculations concerning the divine realm,

the belief that human behavior affects the inner dynamic of the divine

system, and the aspiration to experience and unite with the Divine, are

the major components of Kabbalah and Hasidism.

Another common perception in research accentuates the mythical

element of Kabbalah. Scholem perceived Kabbalah as a revival of the

repressed mythical element of Judaism;30

some of his disciples, first

and foremost, Yehuda Liebes, employ myth as a basic category in

their research, and regard Kabbalah as a new formulation of an essential,

ancient Jewish myth.31

Symbolism is also considered a central feature

of Kabbalah, as Tishby, in Scholems footsteps, asserted: There is no

topic dealt with in kabbalistic literature which is not connected to, in

one way or another, with symbolism and there is no kabbalist who did

not use symbols when expressing his conceptions.32 Scholars have

observed the centrality of exegesis in Kabbalah, and many studies

have been dedicated, especially in recent years, to kabbalistic

368

28 Scholem,Major Trends, 206.

29 Idel,Kabbalah: New Perspectives, xi.

30 Scholem,Major Trends, 22, 34-35.

31 See Yehuda Liebes, Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism (Albany,1993), 1-64. See also Idel,Kabbalah: New Perspectives, 156-157, and thearticles on Kabbalah included in volumes on Jewish myth, such as: Myth inJudaism, ed. Haviva Pedayah (Hebrew; Beer Sheva, 1996); The Seductivness ofJewish Myth, ed. S. Daneil Breslauer (Albany, 1997);Myth in Judaism: History,Thought, Literature, eds. Ithamar Gruenwald and Moshe Idel (Hebrew; Jerusalem,2002).

32 See Isaiah Tishby,Paths of Faith and Heresy (Hebrew; Ramat Gan, 1984), 11 (Ifollow Idels translation inKabbalah: New Perspectives, 201). See also Scholem,Major Trends, 26-28. According to Idel (ibid, 200-201), symbolic expressionsare central only in theosophical Kabbalah.

33 Such as: Elliot Wolfson,Along the Path: Studies in Kabbalistic Hermeneutics, Myth and Symbolism (Albany, 1995); idem, Language, Eros and Being:

hermeneutics.33

Finally, following the common perception of Kabbalah


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as a secretive knowledge, torat ha-sod, numerous Kabbalah scholars

perceive of esotericism as one of its essential aspects.Contemporary forms of Kabbalah and Hasidism challenge the

reigning scholarly assumptions concerning the defining characteristics

of Jewish mysticism. Although most of the new forms of Kabbalah

adopt earlier kabbalistic terms, themes, and practices, most of the

elements accentuated by Kabbalah scholars as basic characteristics of

Kabbalah, do not play a central role in them.

First and foremost contemporary Kabbalah challenges the common

identification of Kabbalah as Jewish mysticism. Although ecstatic

and meditative practices, considered as indicative of the mystical

elements of Kabbalah, are central in some new Kabbalah movements,34

they are absent from many other of the contemporary kabbalistic and

hasidic movements. Furthermore, contemporary Kabbalah calls into

question the assumption concerning the essential Jewish nature of

Kabbalah. Indeed, in earlier periods there usually was a sharp distinction

between Jewish and non-Jewish forms of Kabbalah and Jewish

kabbalists on the whole objected to the study of Kabbalah by non-Jews.

Today, however, many kabbalistic movements teach Kabbalah to non-

Jews and declare that Kabbalah is a universal knowledge, which is not

necessarily connected to Judaism, thus it can be studied and practiced

without association with the observance of Jewish law and Jewish way

of life.35

By the same token several other themes which were recognized as

essential elements of Kabbalah are less accentuated, and sometimes

even completely absent, form contemporary forms of Kabbalah.

Although the notion of the sefirot, usually considered the prime

expression of kabbalistic theosophy, appears in most kabbalistic

movements today, theosophical speculations into the nature of the

369

Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and the Poetic Imagination (New York, 2005), MosheIdel,Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation (above n. 19).

34 See Boaz Huss, The Formation of Jewish Mysticism and its Impact on theReception of Abraham Abulafia in Contemporary Kabbalah, Religion and ItsOthers, eds. Heicke Bock, Jrg Feuchter, Michi Knecht (Frankfurt and NewYork, 2008), 142-162.

35 Myers, Kabbalah for the Gentiles.

divine world and its inner life do not play a central role in most


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Boaz Huss

contemporary kabbalistic and hasidic formations. Similarly, the

mythical elements of Kabbalah, especially the dynamic relations between the male and female components of the divine and the

anthropomorphic depictions of the divine realm are downplayed (and

many times denied) by contemporary kabbalists. Likewise, theurgy,

i,e., the notion that human beings (mostly, Jewish men) are capable of

influencing the workings of the divine system through the observance

of the Jewish precepts, is absent from many forms of contemporary

Kabbalah. Nowadays the theurgical themes of Kabbalah are often

replaced by notions of spiritual improvement, psychological and physical

healing, social and ecological activity. This change comes to the fore

in the new interpretations given to the kabbalistic theurgic concept of

tikkun, in the midnight ceremonies of R. Yacov Israel Ifargan (Ha-

Rentgen), or in the idea of tikkun olam in the Jewish Renewal

Movement.

Symbolic depictions of events in the divine world, as well as

interpretations of canonical texts as symbolic references to the divine

system are conspicuously absent from most kabbalistic movements

today. Exegesis, which was central in previous forms of Kabbalah,

does not play any role in most contemporary Kabbalah schools; amongst

the vast literary productions of contemporary kabbalist, we find very

few commentaries to earlier texts.36

Finally, esotericism, which played

an important role in earlier Kabbalah, and captured the attention ofmany contemporary scholars of Jewish Mysticism, is missing from

almost all present day forms of Kabbalah, which claim that Kabbalah

today is an open knowledge; much effort is put into disseminating and

publicizing Kabbalah.37

The decline of theosophy, theurgy and myth in contemporary

practices of Kabbalah, the prevalent universalistic perceptions of

Kabbalah together with its separation from observance of Jewish law,

370

36 See Huss, The New Age of Kabbalah, 119-120. Exceptions are the commentarieswritten by some the contemporary aredi kabbalists, esp., Itamar Schwartz. SeeGarb, Towards the Study of the Spiritual-Mystical Renaissance in theContemporary Ashkenazy aredi World in Israel, and Wolfson, Building aSanctuary of the Heart, in the present volume.

37 Huss, The New Age of Kabbalah, 119.

the marginal place of symbolic expressions and exegesis, and the overtly


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exoteric nature of Kabbalah today, are perceived by many of the

Kabbalah scholars as indicating its inauthenticity. Consequently, thesescholars belittle contemporary forms of Kabbalah and deny their

relevance to the study of Jewish mysticism.38

Differing from such an approach, I see the new formations of

contemporary Kabbalah as an opportunity to reexamine the scholarly

assumptions concerning the defining characteristics of Kabbalah and

the essential traits of Jewish mysticism. I believe that the new emphases

of contemporary Kabbalah may alter scholarships assumptions

concerning its central themes, and draw attentions to some, as yet,

uninvestigated aspects of Kabbalah. But more than that, the differences

between the new forms of Kabbalah and earlier kabbalistic schools

accentuate that Kabbalah has no defining common denominators. The

study of contemporary Kabbalah emphasizes that Kabbalah and

Hasidism do not have an intrinsic nature and have not developed

organically.39

Rather, they are cultural constructs defined only by

changing contingent historical and social factors.

Finally, I would like to note that the study of contemporary Kabbalah

both stresses and problematizes the theological perspective of Kabbalah

scholarship, which I believe underlines much of academic scholars

condemnation of and struggle against contemporary kabbalistic

movements. As mentioned above, not a few scholars of Kabbalah tend

to disparage contemporary kabbalistic movements and deny theirauthenticity, because of their diversion from themes which these scholars

perceive to be intrinsic traits of Kabbalah. Thus, for instance, Joseph

Dan deplores that numerous gurus are presently operating in Israel,

healing spiritual ailments and offering ways of confronting the hardships

of modern existence; they are routinely called kabbalists even though

there is hardly any element of the authentic traditions of the Kabbalah

in their teachings.40

Similarly, Arthur Green asserts: Some versions

371

38 See Huss, Authorized Guardians; idem, Kabbalah and the Politics of In-

Authenticity.

39 On the notion of an organic development of Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism,see, for instance, Idel,Kabbalah, New Perspectives, 31; Garb,Manifestations ofPower in Jewish Mysticism (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 2005), 272.

40 Dan, The Heart and the Fountain, 42.

of what is proferred as Kabbalah today can be described only as


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posits encounters with a divine or transcendent reality as an explanation

of historical, social and cultural events. Many scholars of Jewishmysticism declare explicitly that their interest in Kabbalah is

metaphysical and religious (or spiritual), rather than just historical

and sociological. Thus, Gershom Scholem asserted that his intention

was writing not the history but the metaphysics of Kabbalah.47

Moshe

Idel wrote that instead of presenting a historical sequence of kabbalists

or ideas, I adopt an essentialist attitude to the contents of kabbalistic

material that places greater emphasis upon their religious countenance

than on their precise location in place and time.48

Melila Hellner-Eshed

declared: I have a deep personal interest in mystical experience and

the hidden potential of human consciousness in the Zohar I find

spiritual possibilities that are capable of redeeming aspects of Jewish

tradition of which I am part from fossilization.49

The theological stance of scholars of Jewish mysticism brings them

into conflict with contemporary kabbalists, who offer different (and at

times similar) understandings of the metaphysical significance, religious

countenance and spiritual possibilities of the Kabbalah. The theological

framework of the academic study of Jewish mysticism which impedes

upon the research of contemporary Kabbalah also obstructs the historical

study of earlier periods of Kabbalah and Hasidism. The encounter

with new developments of Kabbalah and Hasidism which challenges

the methodological assumptions and essentialist presuppositionsregulating the study of Jewish mysticism, opens an opportunity for

Kabbalah scholars to abandon the role of authorized guardians,

theological interpreters and religious teachers of Kabbalah and take on

the more humble role of academic scholars and researchers who study

the past and present formations of Kabbalah and Hasidism as contingent

historical-social phenomena.

373

47 David Biale, Gershom Scholem:Kabbalah and Counter History (Cambridge,Mass, 1982), 75 (for the original letter in German see ibid., 215-216).

48 Idel,Kabbalah, xii.

49 Melila Hellner-Eshed, A River Flows from Eden: The Language of MysticalExperience in the Zohar(Stanford, 2009), 9.


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Huss, Contemporary Kabbalah and Its Challange

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