Neo Hasidism

The genesis of this paper lies in two places. One is the work I have been doing, for the past year or so, on Hillel Zeitlin, translating selected writings into English and preparing a collection for publication. 1 Zeitlin's work, particularly his 1910 essay Ha-Jfasidut 2 had a decisive influence on me when I read it at about age twenty. Since nothing other than on. e or two prayers of Zeitlin has ever appeared in English, I promised long ago that I would edit such a volume, and I am now engaged in fulfilling that promise. The other is Joel Reeker's very interesting review of the Matt translation and my Guide to the Zohar. 3 These two are connected by a notion ofNeo-Hasidism, including my claim that Zeitlin is the real founder ofNeo-Hasidic thought, and that means an important spiritual ancestor of my own, and Reeker's claim that both Matt's and my readings of the Zohar are in fact Neo-Hasidic. 4 As I read the Hecker piece, which at first glance shocked and even annoyed me, I came to understand that by 'Neo-Hasidic' he meant 'experientially based', that is to say that I (I'll leave Matt aside here; he can well represent himself) understand much of the Zohar, especially the whole world of sefirotic language, to reflect the inner experience of the authors, or to serve as an attempt to articulate the reality of such a realm of essentially trans-verbal experience. To say it more broadly, I emphasize the mystical side of the Zohar, as distinct, shall we say, from the metaphysical, historical, and ideational. 2 Forthcoming from Paulist Press in the Classics of Western Spirituality series.

It this article I would like to explore the rise of what can be called "the utilitarian self" in the contemporary spirituality arena in Israel. This social reality, which has its origins in the religious field of late nineteen century America, is in Judaic social circles quite a recent development, and has begun to play a significant part of Israeli contemporary spirituality only since the 1990's. I would like to suggest that the proliferation of certain Neo-Kabbalah and Neo-Hasidic movements since the 1990's is indicative of its rise. By examining these we can better understand the utilitarian self, which lies at their background and presents the cultural conditions for their popularity.

Each of the three great religions of the Western tradition is based upon a narrative that stands at the centre of its faith. For Judaism, it is the Exodus from Egypt and the receiving of Torah at Mount Sinai; for Christianity, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ; for Islam, the hijra and the revelation to Muhammad. Each sees its own narrative as standing at the centre of human history as the 'greatest story ever told', and its truth (however that term is conceived) is vital to all the faithful. Each of these faiths also bears a long history of more abstract theological truth claims, involving such issues as the unity (or trinity) of God, providence, divine authority for the rule of law, the importance of good works, and so forth. In these, the traditions may be shown to have much in common with one another, making for interesting conversation across religious lines. But the core narratives seem to stand in eternal competition with one another, and it is in their utter loyalty to them that the faiths and their faithful remain most deeply divided.

When Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson arrived in the United States in 1941, his father-inlaw, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Schneersohn, asked him to head the new Chabad publishing house, Kehot. It was an inspired decision. A prodigious scholar and bibliophile, the future Rebbe devoted himself passionately to the task of spreading the "wellsprings" of Hasidic teaching "outward" (hafatzat ma'ayanot chutzah). Although Rabbi Schneerson's charismatic personal leadership and the global network of shluchim, or emissaries, he established as the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe have received a great deal of attention in the recent discussions occasioned by his 20 th yahrzeit and the recent biographies by Joseph Telushkin, Chaim Miller, and Adin Steinsaltz, his work as an editor and publisher has been relatively neglected. Yet, it is in the light of this work that some of his most ambitious lifelong goals must be understood.

Already at the beginning of the 20th century several prominent neo-Hasidic writers confessed that nostalgia for the attractions and charms of Hasidism in their writing did not reflect any honest attempt on their part to adhere to the religious beliefs of true Hasidim. Modern literary use of the charms and treasures of Hasidic tradition was now meant to serve the purpose of constructing a secular Jewish identity, or at least one which could serve as a distinct alternative to rabbinic notions of Jewish identity and tradition. Secular modern writers and thinkers promoted an amended version of Hasidism precisely because they hoped to rely upon it as leverage for legitimizing their newfound resentment of Halakha, of the rabbis and of the practice of basing Jewish attachment on philosophical and dogmatic properties of the old classical theology.
The next generation of Jewish writers – operating in the following decades of the 20th century from a modern and secular vantage point - features a long line of literary attempts to cling to the unique heritage of Hasidism and reformulate it, not only by abandoning  pretensions of ‘returning to the religious fold’, but also by attempting to ground and justify the spiritual distance felt by both the writers and their new readership from Rabbinic and Orthodox Judaism. However, these writers also exhibit attempts to blur and dull the sense of a chasm dividing between their secular and humanist sensibility and an authentic atmosphere of ‘Jewish spirituality’. Such attempts deliberately make life difficult for anyone who would propose to draw a clear distinction between the religious longing manifest in genuine Hasidic writing and its secular parallel.
Drawing such distinctions becomes even more complicated when we attempt to compare such literary phenomena with contemporary tendencies in American Jewry that speak of ‘Jewish Renewal’ via open and uninhibited return to Jewish mystical and Hasidic sources. On the one hand, such tendencies do not signify a simple ‘return’ to the original fold of the Hasidic movement.  On the other hand, they should also not be taken merely as limited expression of superficial nostalgia for the traditional past.  Rather, they represent an attempt to found a new, modern Jewish identity, aided and abetted by Hasidic precedent.  Moreover, even the specific ’renovations’ or stereotypes through which Hasidism is currently portrayed appear very familiar to anyone who has already witnessed them in the writings of neo-Hasidic secular writers at the beginning of the 20th century. Despite these similarities, I wish to point to a basic difference between recent attempts to revive the Hasidic heritage as a tool or source of inspiration for religious worship, and prior secular attempts to enlist Hasidism for the purposes of constructing a modern Jewish identity that stands in clear opposition to rabbinical Judaism, challenging the assumption that Jewish identity mandates maintaining specific theological positions or dogmas.

has not fared well among students or fe tioners of contemporary Jewish theology. Disciples and adm taking the trouble to criticize Heschel's failings, have tended thought in mounds of undifferentiated praise.' Critics ha either on the difficulties of Heschel's style and manner of on his notoriously problematic notion of divine pathos.2 Th remarkably little attention to other principal themes in Hesch and indeed have utterly ignored entire portions of his wor example that Heschel's massive two-volume study of rabbin Torah Min Ha-shamayim, is rarely encountered in the scho ture.3 Note as well the widespread focus, as in a recent full-len upon an undefined and undefinable state of being called "f than upon the clearly defined regimen to which Heschel sou his readers: the life of mitzvot, commandments.4 The present fore, will offer both a reading and a re-reading: the form exposition and analysis of Heschel's many writings on the a purpose of the mitzvot; the latter an attempt to re-orient thin Heschel's thought as a whole, by considering it as a wholetention on works and themes which to date have rarely com cal view.

This is my introduction to the book "Jewish Spiritual Growth: The Step-by-step Guide of a Hasidic Master", 2016 (place of publication not listed). The book is the English translation of Yaacov David Shulman of the Piaseczner Rebbe's work "Hahsharat Ha'Avreihim" (circa 1935), which was first published in Tel-Aviv in 1962. The introduction appears beginning with the second printing.

Michael Levi Rodkinson (1845–1904) was a journalist, author, and publisher whose literary projects spanned numerous countries and continents. Hero to some and scoundrel to others, Rodkinson was a polemical figure whose beliefs underwent many transformations over the course of his life, most significantly from Hasidism to combative Haskalah to eventually anticipating the neo-Romantic trends of the early twentieth century. Throughout his career, Rodkinson’s writing challenged the familiar genres of the literature of Hasidism and the Haskalah, shaping the religious realities of his readers and articulating a spiritual and community life among Jews, who took his ideas to heart in surprising ways.Today, Rodkinson is frequently referred to as a minor Hasidic author and publisher, a characterization based on the criticism of his opponents rather than on his writings. In Literary Hasidism, Meir draws upon those writings and their reception to present a completely different picture of this colorful and influential writer. Examining Rodkinson’s lifelong role as a catalyzing agent of different cultural phenomena, his diverse publishing activities, and his writings in their respective stages, Meir grants readers a provocative new vantage point from which to consider this divisive, enigmatic figure.
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“A must read for anyone interested in the history of Hasidic literature. Jonatan Meir masterfully tells the story of late nineteenth-century eastern
European Jewish scholarship through the bruising battles, big ideas, and petty intrigues of Michael Levi Rodkinson.”
—Eliyahu Stern, Yale University
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Jonatan Meir portrays the career of one of the most ambivalent characters of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, Michael Levi Rodkinson, and his move from the propagation of popular Hasidism to his more grandiose attempts to reframe and restructure the entire Jewish canon. This look into the world of the late nineteenthcentury Jewish Enlightenment will be an eye-opener."—Pinchas Giller, Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, American Jewish University
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"Meir has taken the relatively neglected figure of Rodkinson and created a detailed and fascinating portrait. He ably demonstrates that the boundaries between Hasidism and Haskalah were frequently crossed, and this markedly improves our understanding of the dynamics of Jewish intellectual history in the crucial period of the late nineteenth century."—Ira Robinson, Concordia University

The Hasidic story is an impor tant dimension of Jewish folklore and modern Jewish lit er a ture. Alongside the Hasidic homiletic lit er a ture, which holds the main religious and spiritual messages of Hasidism, the Hasidic story pre sents the most impor tant inner-Hasidic foundation for understanding its social and ethical worldview, and perhaps its history. This literary corpus encompasses hundreds of compilations containing thousands of Hasidic stories, legends, and tales, mainly in Hebrew and, to a lesser degree, in Yiddish, written or printed over the last two centuries. The development of the Hasidic tale as an impor tant genre in the movement's literary production must be studied as part of modern Jewish lit er a ture written from the eigh teenth through the twenty-first centuries.

It this article I would like to explore the rise of what can be called "the utilitarian self" in the contemporary spirituality arena in Israel. This social reality, which has its origins in the religious field of late nineteen century America, is in Judaic social circles quite a recent development, and has begun to play a significant part of Israeli contemporary spirituality only since the 1990's. I would like to suggest that the proliferation of certain Neo-Kabbalah and Neo-Hasidic movements since the 1990's is indicative of its rise. By examining these we can better understand the utilitarian self, which lies at their background and presents the cultural conditions for their popularity.

You have seen their flowing beards and pe'ot. You have seen their gartlach(prayer belts) and pocket editions of Sihot Ha-Ran. Perhaps you have even seen them clap and jump in your otherwise uneventful morning minyan. We all call them neo-Hassidim, a term coined to account for the renewed popularity of Hassidic texts and customs in non-Hassidic circles, ranging from Modern Orthodox post-Israel youth, to Haredi rabbis. But beneath the external trappings, who are these bohemian firebrands? What do they really believe, and why do they encounter so much cynicism from onlookers?

In this paper I analyze and contrast Schachter-Shalomi's conception of gender through relating his thought to its Habad origins, utilizing Elliot Wolfson's study of Menahem Mendel Schneerson as a prism. I further contrast Schachter-Shalomi's thought with other New-Age movements and specifically the neo-Kabbalah of Michael Laitman and Berg family. Lastly, I read his "dream tale" regarding the Maiden of Ludmir with the use of Bracha Ettinger's theories as well as other psychoanalysts.

In this first installment of a two-part series to be published in Yeshiva University's Kol HaMevaser journal, I present my assessment of the spiritual climate at Yeshiva University in terms of both institutional infrastructure and organic, student-driven activity. As context for the more thorough retrospective analysis of the next installment, I suggest a paradigm-centered model for the development of an atmosphere of devotional intention and vivacity based on the successes of 20th century Neo-Hassidic movements and communities.

The Jewish Renewal movement is perhaps best characterized by its apparent contradictions: its eclectic blend of Hasidic mysticism and radical egalitarianism, its messianic utopianism alongside its endorsement of the separation between religion and state. The theology of the Jewish Renewal movement engages in what can be termed a “dialectic of Haskala,” a play on the Frankfurt School’s diagnosis of the crisis of modernity in their influential work "The Dialectic of the Enlightenment." Traditional Judaism and the Enlightenment dialectically transform and negate each other. Similarly, Rabbi Zalman
Schachter­-Shalomi, the founder of Jewish Renewal, calls for “spiritual democracy,” in which radical Enlightenment ideas offer a corrective to parochial Hasidism, asserting the spiritual and political equality of all people, regardless of religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation. In this paper, I analyze the Jewish Renewal movement through the lens of Critical Theory in order to to articulate a new understanding of Schachter-Shalomi's theology, an influential yet understudied figure within American Judaism.

The annual Eranos conference in Ascona, Switzerland, contributed immensely to discourse about religion and spirituality from its inception in 1933. These gatherings, which revolved largely around the psychologist Carl Jung, investigated religious consciousness by way of spiritual “symbols” or “archetypes.” Such images were generally treated as timeless, autonomous phenomena that penetrate beyond historical particularities and social forms into the transcendent depths of the mystical Self. Discourse at Eranos thus portrayed the essence of religion as decontextualized and deethicized. The present article demonstrates that the German-Jewish philosopher Martin Buber was already sensitive to the sociopolitical dangers of this approach when he lectured at Eranos in 1934. The essay that emerged out of those lectures, “Sinnbildliche und sakramentale Existenz im Judentum (Symbolic and Sacramental Existence in Judaism),” is widely read as a classic of Buber’s writings on Hasidism. And yet, the historical details surrounding Buber’s Eranos lectures, especially as evidenced in the unpublished letters between him and the conference organizer, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, as well as the stenographer’s typescript of Buber’s live orations, shed remarkable new light on the well-known essay. “Sinnbildliche und sakramentale Existenz” was, in fact, composed largely as a polemic against Jung and his followers at Eranos, a number of whom were aligned with National Socialism and other fascist movements. In an act of scholarly resistance, Buber challenged widespread perspectives at Eranos regarding symbolism, Gnosticism, and the nature of religion. In so doing, he anticipated later critiques of Eranos that took shape in the 1990s.

In this first installment of a two-part series to be published in Yeshiva University's Kol HaMevaser journal, I present my assessment of the spiritual climate at Yeshiva University in terms of both institutional infrastructure and organic, student-driven activity. As context for the more thorough retrospective analysis of the next installment, I suggest a paradigm-centered model for the development of an atmosphere of devotional intention and vivacity based on the successes of 20th century Neo-Hassidic movements and communities.

In this article I explore how Gershom Scholem has been reads by Jewish Orthodox readers and why and how he should be read. I also address how this relaters to current spiritual trends within Orthodoxy.  https://traditiononline.org/orthodoxy-and-the-scholem-moment/

A bibliographic resource to support scholars, students, and seekers in their studies of neo-Hasidism.

From the introduction:

“Neo-Hasidim” (sing. Neo-Hasid) are non-Hasidic Jews who draw upon Hasidism for purposes of spiritual or cultural renewal. Neo-Hasidism is thus rooted in a belief that the core of Hasidism—often identified with the movement’s earliest generations—is transferrable to other sociological contexts. Neo-Hasidim tend to be more secular and liberal-minded than Hasidim, but this is not necessarily the case. Note that even the most radical innovators within Hasidism itself, such as Nahman of Bratslav, Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piaseczno, or Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson, are not “neo-Hasidic” per se, since they operated within Hasidic communities. A border case, however, is women from Hasidic families who have been excluded from the central sites of Hasidic identity performance due to their gender and yet drawn deeply upon Hasidism in their own lives. When neo-Hasidism emerged in Central Europe at the dawn of the 20th century, it represented a striking cultural shift. From the Enlightenment through the 19th century, liberal Jews had generally cast Hasidism as backward, superstitious, and irrational. This was largely a strategic position: by differentiating themselves from “uncivilized,” “oriental” Ostjuden (Eastern European Jews), especially those ecstatic Hasidim, liberal Jews could demonstrate their own worthiness of citizenship and civil rights in modern nation-states. Around the turn of the century, though, a new generation of Jews rejected these bourgeois, assimilationist aspirations. On one hand, unmitigated discrimination against Jews and a rise of racial anti-Semitism seemed to suggest that liberal Jewish denigration of Ostjuden was unproductive, if not immoral. On the other hand, at the same time, a wave of neo-Romanticism swelled in the region, as more and more Europeans asserted that modernist rationalism, promises of progress, and industrialization and urbanization had only bred disenchantment and alienation. Many turned to folk cultures, mythologies, and mysticisms as keys to a renewed vitality. From this perspective, Hasidism took on a new aura. The first wave of what came to be called neo-Hasidism began as a literary phenomenon. Modern Hebrew and Yiddish writers such as Y. L. Peretz (b. 1852–d. 1915), Mikhah Yosef Berdichevsky (b. 1865– d. 1921), and Samuel Abba Horodezky (b. 1871– d. 1957) wrote glowingly about Hasidism from decidedly non-Hasidic—or, in some cases, ex-Hasidic—vantage points. Around the same time, Hillel Zeitlin (b. 1871– d. 1942) and Martin Buber (b. 1878– d. 1965) celebrated Hasidism as a resource for Jewish religious renewal. Decades later, a second wave of neo-Hasidism took shape among spiritual seekers in the North American Jewish counterculture of the 1960s. Sparked initially by immigrants who had fled the Shoah (Holocaust)—most notably Abraham Joshua Heschel (b. 1907– d. 1972), Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (b. 1924– d. 2014), and Shlomo Carlebach (b. 1925– d. 1994)—the neo-Hasidic ethos gained steam through activities of US-born seekers and scholars, especially through the Jewish Renewal movement. Additional, and sometimes surprising, offshoots of neo-Hasidism continue to spread through today.

It this article I would like to explore the rise of what can be called “the utilitarian self” in the contemporary spirituality arena in Israel. This social reality, which has its origins in the religious field of late nineteen century America, is in Judaic social circles quite a recent development, and has begun to play a significant part of Israeli contemporary spirituality only since the 1990’s. I would like to suggest that the proliferation of certain Neo-Kabbalah and Neo-Hasidic movements since the 1990’s is indicative of its rise. By examining these we can better understand the utilitarian self, which lies at their background and presents the cultural conditions for their popularity. I will therefore present a few typical examples of the utilitarian self’s manifestation in Israel, and will then try to clarify the socio-cultural reasons for its prevalence at this time. Let us start, however, with a description of the subject matter. The utilitarian self, I propose, is a particul...